American manufacturers in revolt. Actually, no. US diplomacy once again on the attack. According to the Trumpian politicians stationed in Europe, in fact, Brussels would be trying to exclude from European roads, through regulations, their larger pick-ups, including the Ford F-150, Chevy Silverado, and Ram 1500.
THE US FURIOUS OVER ALLEGED ANTI PICK-UP RULES
In an interview that Andrew Puzder, United States Ambassador to the Union, gave to the Financial Times, the EU safety rules are once again targeted by the US. Those same rules that the United States had demanded Brussels to soften last summer, on the occasion of the 15 percent tariff agreement reached by the EU.
ALL “FAULT” OF LAST SUMMER’S TARIFF AGREEMENT
As Start Magazine had documented last August, hidden in the documents signed between Washington and Brussels was the American request to loosen their laws to open the borders of the 27 to vehicles previously banned precisely based on European restrictions. “Allowing the sale of a greater number of US SUVs and pick-ups with much lower safety and air pollution standards would be a betrayal of all EU citizens,” denounced James Nix, Vehicles Policy Manager of one of the largest environmental associations in Europe, Transport & Environment, at that very time.
In reality, nothing has changed legislatively since then: the reference regulation is still the 2018 Regulation 858, so although the US Ambassador to the Union rants hypothesizing further tightening of the rules, so far there have been no interventions in this regard. Much has changed, however, on the US front, since at the end of February the Supreme Court declared Trumpian tariffs illegitimate: an extremely confusing situation that is pushing Brussels to wait and see to avoid committing to the transatlantic partner on the basis of nothing.
A NEW COMMERCIAL CASUS BELLI?
Also because if for Puzder Brussels’ anti-huge pick-up positions would violate the spirit of last summer’s trade agreement, it would still be a marginal damage for US manufacturers: Quattroruote quantifies it as a market of 7,000 vehicles registered throughout the Old Continent during 2024.
The problem, therefore, would not be so much the large US pick-ups, which would have no market anyway being huge and oversized for European roads, but the community rules on safety and environment which, by setting higher standards than the American ones, force the stars and stripes manufacturers to very costly modifications on all other models they intend to export across the Atlantic to have their approval recognized.
