The European Union responded on Friday to renewed trade pressure from the United States, after Washington accused the bloc of enabling Chinese evasion of US tariffs and urged it to roll back key green business regulations. The US ambassador to the EU, Andrew Puzder, called on the bloc to align the provisions of two new laws on environmental and human rights supply chain standards with the EU-US trade deal struck last year.

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In a post on X, Puzder said it was time for the EU to deliver, accompanying the message with a US government document listing concerns about the rules. The document warned that the United States would take any actions necessary to address unreasonable burdens on US commerce if a solution was not found.

European Commission spokesperson Arianna Podesta said the EU continued to exchange on tariff and non-tariff issues with the United States, describing the process as constructive. However, she added that the EU had been clear that neither its rules framework nor its regulatory autonomy were up for negotiation.

The Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) requires large companies to address adverse human rights and environmental impacts in their supply chains, while the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) mandates disclosure of climate impact and emissions. The US document argued that the directives’ extraterritorial reach and costly due diligence obligations would harm US businesses’ ability to compete in the EU market.

The EU has already scaled back the scope of both laws under pressure from businesses, delaying implementation and exempting smaller firms, but the US document said this did not go far enough. Puzder’s comments came a day after he criticised the bloc’s carbon border tax, CBAM, calling it a tariff in substance despite its climate policy label.

Separately, the EU was among several trading partners flagged in a White House report on Thursday as risks regarding illegal transshipment from China, where goods are routed through third countries to avoid tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump. The report, which also targeted Mexico, Canada and Japan, said it would use artificial intelligence to detect illegal practices.

Podesta said the EU shared the US objective of tackling customs fraud and was engaging with Washington to understand the report’s implications, while noting that the document found the EU transshipment risk to be embedded within broad legitimate trade flows.

Source: IndexBox Market Intelligence Platform