Euro Strategy: Tariff Risks by Sector

The prospect of hefty US tariffs on European imports and the signaling of retaliatory countermeasures by the EU create uncertainties for the status quo of bilateral trade between each other’s largest aggregate trading partners. For the EU, with which the US recorded a goods trade deficit of €197 billion and total goods trading of €863 billion in 2024 per Eurostat, the potential negative economic consequences of abrupt trade barriers vary across sectors and countries.

Up to this point, the only new direct US tariffs on European goods have been a 25% import tax on global steel and aluminum imports (effective 12 March). The EU reinstated halted tariffs from 2021 (scheduled restart of 1 April) in response, and a new tariff package is scheduled to be implemented in mid-April.

While we await details from the ongoing US trade review and tariff implementation expected on 2 April, this report provides a summary table of preliminary sector-level implications of US tariffs and retaliatory EU countermeasures based on a numerical scale from 5 being most negative to 1 being positive. Our team identified 31 individual credits as potentially at risk from a fundamental and operational standpoint, while also highlighting 41 issuers that may be mostly insulated from direct tariffs.