Zippo’s Court Setback Boosts EU Right to Retaliate Against Trump | Company Business News

The European Union’s power to impose retaliatory tariffs on US goods and services won a legal boost from an adviser to the bloc’s top court, as the 27-member jurisdiction continues to spar with President Donald Trump over trade.

In a case that pits leading lighting maker Zippo Manufacturing Co. against the European Commission, the EU Court of Justice’s Advocate General Tamara Ćapeta said that the firm’s challenge against the bloc’s 2020 retaliatory US tariffs should be dismissed. 

While Thursday’s opinion is non-binding, it sets the tone for a final ruling in the case in the coming months. Should the commission falter at that hurdle, it could find its wings clipped in confronting Trump’s ongoing tariff campaign.

Zippo’s challenge against EU tariffs stretches back to 2020, when the EU imposed retaliatory duties on US goods during Trump first stint in the White House. This included a 20% tariff on lighters as a response to U.S. tariffs on EU steel and aluminum products. 

Zippo challenged the EU’s move, arguing that since it was the only known company supplying the type of lighters targeted it had a right to be consulted and to challenge the levies. The EU’s General Court sided with Zippo in 2023, but the European Commission appealed the ruling to the bloc’s highest tribunal, the Court of Justice. 

Advocate General Ćapeta on Thursday advised the bloc’s top court to strike out Zippo’s argument, noting that a right to be heard “applies only in a procedure in which the administration takes an individual measure in relation to a person.” 

Thursday’s legal opinion comes as the EU continues to jostle with the White House over Trump’s tariff warnings, in which he has threatened to hit nearly all of the bloc’s imports with a 50% tariff before a July 9 deadline, unless a deal is secured. EU and US trade officials says negotiations on that agreement are headed in the right direction.

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