new delhi president donald trump rejected a european union offer to scrap tariffs on cars likening the blocs trade policies to those of china its not good enough trump said of the offer from brussels during an oval office interview with bloomberg news their consumer habits are to buy their cars not to buy our carstrumps comments come just hours after trade commissioner cecilia malmstrom told european parliament lawmakers that the eu would be willing to bring down even our car tariffs to zero all tariffs to zero if the us does the same autos were previously excluded from the discussions that focused on manufactured products bought and sold between the two marketstrump compared the eu to china where the president is engaged in another escalating trade warthe european union is almost as bad as china just smaller trump saidlast month the us and eu agreed not to impose new tariffs on each other after trump and european commission president jeanclaude juncker met at the white house the two sides agreed to open discussions about a trade agreement on industrial goods but at us insistence left out cars trump has set achieving zero tariffs zero subsidies and zero nontariff barriers for industrial goods as part of those talkseuropean leaders and the continents auto industry have been offering to drop the eus 10 per cent tariff on passenger vehicles a persistent target of trumps complaints he has used the gap between that eu duty and the uss own 25 per cent tariff on passenger cars to justify his plan to impose an import tax of as much as 25 per cent on imported cars and partsbut that complaint ignores the much higher 25 per cent tariff the us applies on light trucks the most profitable segment for the us auto industryeliminating tariffs on us auto imports would do little for general motors co and ford motor co but would lend a major boost to germanys bmw ag and daimler ag suvs assembled by the german carmakers in the american south dominate the models exported to europe from the usbmw for example is projected to sell nearly 70000 x3 suvs in europe made in its south carolina factory this year according to data from lmc automotive compare that to roughly 15000 units of tesla incs model s sedan which lmc an industry data consultancy projects will be the topselling model in europe assembled in the us by an american automakertrump has ordered his commerce department to investigate whether car imports imperil national security under the same provision he invoked to impose global tariffs on steel and aluminum earlier this yearthe findings of the auto study are due by february though the president could decide to act before then this week trump threatened canada with auto tariffs if the country failed to join his trade deal with mexico to replace nafta