Archive: https://archive.is/2025.03.29-083158/https://www.ft.com/content/218efe0d-e4a8-4f5b-ae96-de46e64dcb89

France, Ireland and Europe’s powerful farming unions are pushing Brussels to drop many food and drink products from its proposed retaliation against US tariffs.

The European Commission has received floods of objections from business and member states to its list of measures, underlining how the 27 member block might struggle to respond collectively to US pressure.

Jack Chambers, Ireland’s public expenditure minister, warned against “retaliatory and tit-for-tat measures that could worsen a trade dispute” on Friday while Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni told the FT the EU should negotiate over its high duties on some items.

“There are big differences on the single goods,” she said. “That’s what we have to work on to find a good, common solution.”