Pedro Sánchez announces a plan to respond to tariffs endowed with 14,100 million euros

The president of the Spanish Government, Pedro Sánchez, has announced an «Commercial Response and Rejoice Plan» endowed with 14,100 million euros and designed with the aim of mitigating the negative impacts of the tariff war initiated by the US administration.

Sanchez has insisted that this plan will be «a shield that protects the economy», so «if the storm ends up unleashing Spain will have a double umbrella: the European umbrella and the Spanish umbrella.»

The chief executive has made this announcement during the meeting with the Spanish productive sector, hours after the US president Donald Trump has announced that he will impose a 20 % tariff to the imports that arrive from the European Union.

Of the 14,100 million announced by Sánchez, 7,400 million are new financing and another 6,700 million are existing instruments with which different measures that will be articulated in two large pillars will be promoted.

The first one, as the president explained, intends to help and protect companies and employment that «could be affected by these new tariffs», and for this they will start two lines of guarantees, equipped with 6,000 million euros, to facilitate access to financing.

Industrial production (with 200 million) and plans to stimulate the automobile sector (400 million) will also be promoted.

Sanchez recalled that the social dialogue table with employers and unions has been constituted, while the Government promotes dialogue with the different administrations and the affected sectors.

In addition, mechanisms will be activated to maintain templates and help employees of the companies most hit by the commercial war until their activity is recovered.

The Plan has a second leg aimed at redirecting the Spanish productive capacity, which will be allocated 5,000 million of the recovery plan so that the affected industries and companies can be reoriented towards new sectors with high demand.

Exporting companies will have 2 billion credit insurance and export risk coverage to find new markets and another 500 million to promote SMEs internationalization.

On the other hand, Sánchez has announced that he will ask the European Commission for emergency measures such as the activation of a special framework of state aid, which provides greater flexibility to national support measures.

Also the creation of an assistance fund to the affected sectors, financed with the collection of the community tariffs that are put as a counterpart to the US, in addition to the review of some community regulations to support the sectors that will be most affected and the ratification of the agreement with Mercosur.

EFE