Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda plans to visit Japan and Vietnam in June together with the country’s government and business representatives to help Lithuanian companies find new markets and new partners in response to US tariffs on imports from the European Union.
“We need to help businesses to switch and find new trade routes. (…) The president plans to go on business missions to Tokyo and Hanoi together with government representatives as early as June,” Irena Segaloviciene, the presidential advisor on economic and social policy, told the Ziniu Radijas news radio on Tuesday.
According to her, the Ministry of Economy and Innovation has drawn up a 20 million euro plan to help businesses adapt, and further promotion of this plan should be foreseen when drawing up next year’s state budget.
However, she said that while the EU was already working on its response to Washington’s tariffs, the bloc should stick to the “path of dialogue.”
“We are now entering, collectively, not only an era of tariff wars, but also, we hope, a period of new economic trade agreements,” Segaloviciene underlined, adding that tariffs increase inflation, damage international trade and pose structural challenges to economies.
However, the presidential adviser noted that Europe’s economy is incomparably stronger after the trade wars of the 20th century.
“Today, we have a single market of almost 500 million consumers, which has already shown its strength, which also overcome the COVID-19 pandemic together, and it gas seriously united on sanctions against Russia, on aid to Ukraine, and we have no doubt that it will unite to help European producers when needed,” Segaloviciene said.
Last week, the US announced plans to impose tariffs against various countries around the world, including a 20 per cent import tariff on the EU.
Lithuania’s direct exports to the United States account for about 6.8 per cent of total exports of Lithuanian goods and were valued at 1.6 billion euros last year.
The Central Bank of Lithuania estimates that a possible trade war between the US and the EU would reduce Lithuania’s economic growth by 0.33-1.3 percentage points over four years.
