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Rolls of steel await shipment. (Timothy D. Easley/Associated Press)

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The European Union’s trade chief, Maros Sefcovic, will meet with U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer this week to try to restart stalled talks to lower tariffs on steel and aluminum exports.

The European Commission, the EU’s executive arm responsible for trade matters, has proposed to eliminate or significantly reduce the duties. But it has not heard back from the U.S. on its offer, EU trade chief Sefcovic said in an interview with Bloomberg.

“The most logical step would be to proceed with a tariff-rate quota, with low or no tariffs,” Sefcovic said. “It would be premature to elaborate further because we so far haven’t received the response to this proposal, but we know that it’s very important for our industry and therefore we are permanently putting it on the table.”

Sefcovic and Greer will meet on the sidelines of the ASEAN ministerial summit in Kuala Lumpur, where the EU commissioner plans to raise the issue.

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Asked for comment, the U.S. Trade Representative said metal tariffs are handled by the Commerce Department, which did not reply to a request for comment.

The EU proposal follows up on a political deal on trade the bloc struck with the U.S. in July. Under the agreement, the U.S. placed a 15% tariff on most EU products, while the EU pledged to eliminate its duties on U.S. industrial goods. The EU said the two sides had also vowed to work on reducing a 50% tariff on EU steel and aluminum.

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The bloc’s idea is to establish a quota for the steel and aluminum trade, with reduced or no tariffs on all EU exports made under that limit. In August, however, the U.S. slapped the 50% rate on more than 400 new products with steel and aluminum, further complicating the situation.

Sefcovic said the commission is preparing concrete proposals to resolve the issue, which he immediately raised with the Trump administration. But there has been no “concrete reaction,” he added.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said last week that solutions to the high steel and aluminum tariffs were “well on the way,” but didn’t provide further details.

Many EU countries criticized the bloc’s trade deal with the U.S., including Germany. The commission argued that it was the best available option to give European companies predictability while preserving transatlantic cooperation on issues like security and defense, especially in Ukraine.

But the U.S. has yet to deliver on some key commitments in the deal, particularly to reduce its tariffs on EU cars to 15% from 27.5%.

The EU and the U.S. have been clashing over steel and aluminum since President Donald Trump imposed steep tariffs during his first term. Even after Trump left office, the two sides couldn’t fully resolve the dispute during the Biden administration. And when Trump returned to the White House, he erased all exemptions and raised the tariffs to 50%.

The EU exported around 3.8 billion million tons of steel to the U.S. in 2024, around 1 million tons less than before Trump first became president.