Here are the winners and losers from EU’s retaliation plan against US tariffs

BRUSSELS — While the EU’s latest U.S. retaliatory tariff proposal hits aircraft, vehicles and medical appliances hardest, health care, transport and agri-food lobbyists have secured a few wins.

Having already agreed on an initial tariff package affecting around €21 billion in U.S. goods, set to come into force Aug. 6, the EU has been haggling over the details of a second retaliatory package for months.

The second list, seen by POLITICO, would affect €72 billion worth of imports. That’s down from an initial proposal, published in May, that would have hit an estimated €95 billion worth of U.S. goods.

Lobbying around the lists has been intense, as national and sectoral representatives scramble to get key goods they need from the U.S. scrubbed from the lineup of negotiating chips.

We crunched the numbers on the goods most likely to get caught in the crossfire and which sectors may manage to escape unscathed.

The big picture

According to the latest EU plan, tariffs on industrial goods would hurt U.S. imports the most, to the tune of almost €66 billion. The remainder of the pain, €6 billion in affected goods, would come from tariffs on agricultural and food products.

Aircraft products top the tariff impact charts by miles, with over €10 billion goods potentially affected. 

Passenger vehicles and medical appliances round out the top three largest product categories hit in both the May and July versions of the tariff list. 

Biggest winners

Diagnostic or laboratory reagents — i.e., chemicals used for medical testing — and gas turbines were set to be among the top 10 most affected product groups in the first version of the tariff list. They have been scrubbed from the latest version seen by POLITICO. 

They are not the only products that managed to escape the fray. 

Several goods related to health care appear to no longer be under threat, such as X-ray apparatus, thread for stitches, and materials used for surgery to separate tissue, as well as wheelchairs and scooters for people with disabilities.

In the world of agriculture and food, soybean seeds also disappeared from the document.

Making gains

While unsuccessful in totally dodging tariffs, some key goods for large product categories have been removed from the firing line. 

For instance, several data processing machines, i.e., computers, have been removed from the list. As have machines used to make semiconductors. 

With U.S. President Donald Trump’s latest 30 percent tariff threat and the Aug. 1 deal deadline looming, European producers reliant on products still on the list will be bracing for impact or praying for a deal.

Hanne Cokelaere contributed to this report.