(Bloomberg) -- U.S. President Donald Trump will not impose tariffs on European Union automotive goods next week as threatened, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker told German newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung.

“Trump will ruffle a bit, but there will not be any automobile tariffs,” Juncker said in the interview, which was published online Thursday. “He won’t do it. You’re talking to a fully informed man.”

Trump gave himself a deadline of mid-November to decide whether to impose the levies on cars and auto parts. The EU threatened to retaliate with tariffs on $39 billion of American goods if the president carried out his threat.

Last year, Trump infuriated European leaders by declaring American imports of steel and aluminum a security threat and imposing levies of 25% and 10%, respectively, on shipments from around the world, including the EU. That prompted the bloc to retaliate with a 25% tariff on 2.8 billion euros ($3.1 billion) of American goods such as Harley-Davidson Inc. motorcycles, Levi Strauss & Co. jeans and bourbon whiskey.

A 25% U.S. levy on foreign cars would add 10,000 euros to the sticker price of EU vehicles imported into the country, according to the Brussels-based European Commission, the bloc’s executive arm.

U.S. tariffs on European cars and auto parts would mark a significant escalation of transatlantic tensions because the value of EU automotive exports to the American market is about 10 times greater than that of the bloc’s steel and aluminum exports combined. As a result, European retaliatory duties would target a bigger amount of U.S. exports to Europe.

EU Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom said on Wednesday the EU has been in “intensive discussions” with the U.S. to prevent new tariffs affecting transatlantic trade in auto goods, warning that both sides would be hurt. “We continue, of course, to have contacts until the very last moment,” she said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Birgit Jennen in Berlin at bjennen1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Ben Sills at bsills@bloomberg.net, Richard Bravo, Tim Ross

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