The European Union launched countermeasures on Wednesday against new US metals tariffs, with plans to impose its own duties on up to €26 billion ($28.3 billion) worth of American goods.

The announcement came hours after the US administration imposed 25% tariffs on steel and aluminum imports in a massive escalation of the trade war between the longstanding allies. The EU will target politically sensitive goods in Republican-led states, including soybeans from Louisiana, home to House Speaker Mike Johnson, according to a senior EU official.

EU metals tariffs that had been put in place during Trump’s first term, and later suspended, are due to be reintroduced in full on April 1, including some levies that have never previously been in force.

The EU will also immediately begin consultations with member states, with the aim of adopting the additional lists of agricultural and industrial goods subject to tariffs as high as 25% by mid-April. Officials said the idea is to allow a window for negotiations, which will be led by the bloc’s trade chief, Maros Sefcovic.

“The countermeasures we take today are strong yet proportionate,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told reporters at a briefing in Strasbourg. “We firmly believe that in a world fraught with geo-economic and political uncertainties, it is not in our common interest to burden our economies with such tariffs.”

While the EU announced immediately retaliatory steps, other affected countries, including the UK, refrained from immediate action and called for negotiations.

Read More: UK Splits With Europe by Opting Against Snap Tariff Retaliation

European stocks rallied on Wednesday, with the Stoxx Europe 600 gaining 0.7% and Germany’s DAX rallying 1.2% as traders reacted to progress toward a ceasefire in the war in Ukraine. The euro was little changed, pausing after a sharp rally in the past days.

For Europe, the new levies will be nearly four times the size of similar duties imposed during Trump’s first term, when the US targeted €6.4 billion of the bloc’s metals exports, citing national security concerns. The value of those previous levies is now €4.5 billion based on current EU-US trade volumes, according to an EU official.

The EU will target US steel and aluminum products, as well as textiles, agricultural products and home appliances.

For now, the EU plan is to penalize €22.5 billion of goods in total, an official said, although the bloc has the right to raise that to match the full €26 billion value of the US tariffs. It aims to target products that will inflict damage in politically sensitive places in the US while avoiding additional economic pain for Europe.

The EU is planning to hit beef and poultry from Republican-led states Nebraska and Kansas, said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The bloc’s list will include products from its previous trade fight with Trump such as boats, bourbon and motorbikes.

The EU can begin sourcing some targeted products from outside the US, such as soybeans from Brazil or Argentina, according to the official.

Transatlantic Trade Test

Note: Mapped data show combined exports of “trade all qualities less stainless” with “stainless qualities.”

In addition, Trump has announced reciprocal tariffs coming in early April based on policies of partners that are seen as obstacles to US trade, including Europe’s value-added tax, and has targeted certain goods including European cars.

Sefcovic traveled to Washington last month to try to find an amicable solution with senior members of the Trump team including US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. He offered to lower tariffs on industrial goods, including cars, one of Trump’s longstanding demands, and increasing US imports of liquefied natural gas and defense goods.

“The disruption caused by tariffs is avoidable if the US administration accepts our extended hand and works with us to strike a deal,” Sefcovic said Wednesday. “We are ready to negotiate.”

In the European steel market, producers are bracing for a two-fold impact, with European exports to the US set to fall, and the region’s imports set to rise as metal is re-routed away from the US.

US Goods Targeted by EU during Trump’s First Trade War

Note: Note: EU imports from the US of goods listed under annexes I and II of the commission implementing regulation (EU) 2018/886 of June 20, 2018

“We can indeed expect the EU market – already saturated with cheap steel imports from Asia, North Africa and the Middle East — to be further flooded as steel intended for the US market is redirected because of the new tariffs,” a spokesperson for industry lobby group Eurofer said.

During the first Trump presidency, for every three tons of steel deflected from the US market because of tariffs, two tons went to the EU, the spokesperson said.

Aluminum producers are also bracing for a surge in imports, particularly from Canada, which typically supplies more than half of the aluminum that the US imports.

The metals tariffs apply worldwide, with effects extending to economic rivals as well as close US allies. Major Asian producers including South Korea, Taiwan, Japan and Australia held off on retaliating. The UK said it would focus on “rapidly negotiating a wider economic agreement.”

For the EU, the fight over American metals tariffs started in 2018 during Trump’s first term, when the US hit steel and aluminum exports with duties, citing national security concerns. At the time, officials in Brussels scoffed at the notion that the EU posed such a threat.

The 27-nation bloc retaliated by targeting politically sensitive companies with retaliatory duties, including Harley-Davidson Inc. motorcycles and Levi Strauss & Co. jeans.

The two sides agreed to a temporary truce in 2021 under President Joe Biden, when the US partly removed its measures and introduced a set of tariff-rate quotas above which duties on the metals are applied, while the EU froze all of its restrictive measures.