European business braces for greater impact from US tariffs in 2026

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BRUSSELS(Reuters) -European business sees a far greater impact in 2026 from U.S. tariffs and other trade tensions than in 2025, when front-loading mitigated the consequences, a survey by BusinessEurope showed on Monday.

The survey found that trade tensions were likely to pull 2025 gross domestic product down by 0.03 percentage points for the euro zone, the EU and a broader group of European countries. For 2026, the negative impact was likely to be 0.5 to 0.6 percentage points, with the euro zone faring worst.

The business lobby group’s survey was based on responses from its 36 national business federations across the European Union and in non-EU countries, such as Britain, Switzerland, Turkey and Ukraine.

BusinessEurope said its survey aligned with the view of the European Central Bank that the impact of tariffs and uncertainty on euro zone growth was likely to be around 0.7 percentage points between 2025 and 2027.

This was less than previously expected, with policy uncertainty falling rapidly after the EU-U.S. deal at the end of July, the ECB said.

However, BusinessEurope said that companies were still expressing concerns about lack of predictability and that the delayed economic impact and uncertainty over future U.S. tariffs presented medium-term challenges to growth.      

(Reporting by Philip Blenkinsop; editing by Diane Craft)