Who handles trade in the EU? The US isn’t sure.

BRUSSELS — Donald Trump’s top trade negotiator, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, isn’t sure who to talk to in Europe about a dispute that threatens to wreck the €1.6 trillion transatlantic trade relationship.

“When I call Europe, who do I call?” Bessent said during a White House briefing on Tuesday, echoing a phrase coined by Henry Kissinger back in the 1970s.

Trump’s point man for economic and fiscal policy suspects European governments of trying to confound Washington by imposing different national taxes on digital services that it considers a barrier to U.S. businesses.

“We’re negotiating with a lot of different interests,” Bessent lamented. “So they have some internal matters to decide on before they can engage in an external negotiation.”

Here’s a tip from Brussels: The European Commission has a trade commissioner. His name is Maroš Šefčovič. Pronounced Mah-rosh Shef-cho-vich (he’s from Slovakia). His job is to negotiate trade deals on behalf of the 27 countries that make up the EU.

Bessent hasn’t yet met with Šefčovič. 

He did meet with Valdis Dombrovskis in Washington last week. But despite being mistakenly introduced as the EU’s trade commissioner at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland earlier this year, Dombrovskis no longer holds that job. He is now the EU commissioner who is responsible for economic affairs.

So try talking to the EU trade commissioner!

A Commission official told POLITICO that Bessent’s comments were “a silly thing to say, given that the U.S. administration has had a handful of meetings on these issues with the trade commissioner.” That’s Šefčovič, who is a trusted ally of Ursula von der Leyen. Her job title as president of the Commission ranks her as the EU’s top official.

Šefčovič has visited Washington three times this year, holding talks with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Trade Representative Jamieson Greer and others, to push for an EU-U.S. agreement to scrap tariffs on industrial goods.

So far, Šefčovič has made scant headway — he has expressed frustration over the attitude of his U.S. counterparts. “One hand cannot clap,” he said in March.

The clock is ticking: Trump imposed 20 percent “reciprocal” tariffs on the EU in early April, only to suspend them for 90 days a week later to allow time to do a deal. In the meantime, a 10 percent baseline tariff still applies on most goods imported from the EU, along with 25 percent levies on steel, aluminum and autos.

Commission officials updated EU diplomats Wednesday evening on the state of the negotiations — and the possible way forward.

“To be frank, it’s still not completely clear what the U.S. really wants. They ask a very disparate number of different things,” said one European diplomat, who described the talks as being in the discussion phase. “So we are still trying to figure out what are the real priorities from the U.S.”

Camille Gijs contributed reporting from Brussels, Doug Palmer from Washington. This story has been updated.