Plastics association quantifies US-EU trade dispute impacts

The Washington-based Plastics Industry Association has released an analysis designed to examine the potential impact on the United States plastics industry of the European Union’s proposed retaliatory tariffs.

Potential tariffs on products shipped from the U.S. to the EU have been drawn up for consideration in Brussels in response to both existing U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum and reported “reciprocal” tariffs on a wider scope of products and materials being considered by the administration of President Donald J. Trump.

The brief Plastics Industry Association analysis, authored by its chief economist Dr. Perc Pineda, concludes that based on the 60 resin and plastic products identified by the EU as tariff targets, “The proposed EU tariffs are estimated to impact $5.9 billion in U.S. plastics resin and product exports to the EU, based on 2024 export values.”

Continues Pineda, “The European Commission’s proposed countermeasures put a potential $1.6 billion U.S. [plastics sector] trade surplus from 2024 at risk in 2025.”

Although the list of identified plastic items and materials that will receive tariffs if the trade dispute unfolds does not include any specifically mentioning recycled content, it does include several products or types of plastic that could include secondary resins.

In the closing statement of the analysis, Pineda notes the Plastics Industry Association “supports the entire plastics supply chain, including equipment suppliers, material suppliers, processors and recyclers.”

The Plastics Industry Association analysis was released the same day the Washington Post reported that White House staff members were “laying the groundwork” for extensive new tariffs, referred to by the administration as reciprocal in nature, to be announced on Wednesday, April 2.

According to the Post article, while the average U.S. tariff rate on inbound goods was 2.2 percent when President Trump’s second term began, a former trade official contacted by the newspaper suggests “Trump’s reciprocal plan could return the average U.S. tariff to its early 1930s level of around 20 percent.”

The same article indicates President Trump’s tariff program has adherents in sectors where companies say they have been undercut by imported goods, including growers of Christmas trees, shrimp boat owners and makers of jellies and jams.