VIENNA, March 7 (Xinhua) -- Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz sharply criticized planned tariffs by the U.S. government, saying Wednesday that all sides would lose in the event of a trade war.
The newspaper Kurier reported Kurz as saying after a cabinet meeting that it would be best if "we could just spare ourselves all of this".
Should the tariffs -- that would be applied to steel and aluminum imports in the United States -- be implemented, however, "there will be a reaction that will hopefully lead to a re-think by the U.S., and one can let this nonsense be."
In any case, the Austrian government is trying to prevent the Trump administration from taking the step toward implementing the tariffs in the first place.
The White House said the United States is set to impose a 25-percent tariff on steel imports and a 10-percent tariff on aluminum imports to protect the U.S. industry.
The Austrian chancellor's comments follow similar warnings from the European Union (EU) on Wednesday by European Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom.
Malmstrom confirmed the EU had established a provisional list of U.S. items that would see higher tariffs in the EU should the United States move forward with its plans, and also that Brussels could take the case to the World Trade Organization (WTO).