Request for information concerning trade with the United States

The Ministry for Foreign Affairs requests companies and interest groups to provide their views on export to the United States.

The US has imposed several new tariffs on imports during the first half of the year. On 21 August 2025, the EU and the United States published a joint statement on their trade relationship. In line with the statement, the United States began to apply an all-inclusive 15% tariff rate on goods originating in the EU. In addition, the United States reduced tariffs in certain sectors. The EU will eliminate import tariffs on US industrial goods and certain agricultural and seafood goods and modify tariff-rate quotas on certain agricultural and fishery products. Proposals for regulations on tariff reductions are currently being discussed by the European Parliament and Council.

According to the joint statement, the parties intend to improve market access and strengthen their trade relations.

Content of the request for information

For possible further negotiations, the Ministry for Foreign Affairs requests the reasoned views of companies and interest groups on the following issues:

1) Information on prioritised export products for which lowering the level of duties in the United States would be particularly important

• Give the relevant tariff heading (at HS6 level) for each product. Your response must include detailed reasons for why, from the US point of view, it would be particularly important to export the product to the United States (e.g. availability, lack of US producers, quality, price, other factors). In your response, you should also tell us whether the product is subject to the all-inclusive 15% tariff rate or to sector-specific tariffs, for example to the 50% tariff on steel, aluminium and copper imports or to a Section 232 investigation. A list of Section 232 investigations currently underway in the United States is available on the website of the U.S. Department of Commerce.

Please send your responses regarding this item no later than Wednesday 22 October 2025. You can also send information after the deadline, in which case it will be taken into account as far as possible.

2) Information on trade with the United States

• Possible challenges related to US customs duties, including information on US Customs’ erroneous customs clearance decisions and difficult customs procedures.
• Information on trade barriers in the US market. These may include trade restrictions due to:
  • high import duties
  • difficult customs procedures
  • technical regulations, standards or declaration of conformity procedures that are burdensome or discriminatory
  • discriminatory taxation practices
  • requirements for domestic products ("Buy American")
  • barriers to trade in services, for example in digital services or the entry of experts to the country 
  • discriminatory requirements or operating practices imposed on foreign operators concerning investments
  • requirements or operating practices favouring US actors in competitive tendering for US public procurement
  • shortcomings in the protection of intellectual property rights.

There is no deadline for responses regarding this item; the request for information is open until further notice.

Sending responses

The responses should include the reasons for your views.

Please send your responses to the Ministry for Foreign Affairs’ Trade Policy Unit to the following recipients: Ilkka Saarinen, Kristiina Kauppinen and Pieti Tiilikainen ([email protected]).  

If you have already sent information in 2025, please send the information again and include the reasons for your views.

The Ministry for Foreign Affairs will treat all submitted information as confidential.