The USA has put forward a demand to the European Union to soften part of the environmental legislation. This comes months after a tariff pact was agreed to avert a full-scale transatlantic trade war. This was reported by the Financial Times agency.
As noted in the position paper of the US government, Washington called on Brussels to cancel the requirement for non-European companies to submit “climate transition plans”. In addition, the United States is pushing for changes to environmental responsibility in supply chains so that American companies and businesses from “countries with high-quality corporate due diligence” were removed from the scope of these rules.
The move is part of a broader campaign by Washington to push countries, financial institutions and businesses to roll back climate change policies, using international bodies from the World Bank to stock regulators. President Donald Trump is also putting pressure on Brussels over laws restricting big tech companies, raising concerns in the EU that the July trade deal may not hold.
European due diligence rules, which came into effect last year, oblige companies operating in the EU to monitor environmental and social violations in supply chains to combat forced labor and environmental pollution. At the same time, the Trump administration’s document called this legislation a “serious and unjustified regulatory overreach,” which “imposes a significant economic and regulatory burden on American companies.”
Washington submitted its demands to the European Commission in recent days. Unlike traditional trade negotiations, the US does not offer any concessions in return.
