The European Commission has proposed that, if tariffs are imposed, the bloc should challenge them at the World Trade Organization, consider measures to prevent metal flooding into Europe and impose import duties on U.S. products to "rebalance" EU-U.S. trade.
The one word neither the Commission nor EU leaders will want to use is "retaliation".
"The EU is quite conscious of not wanting to fight the U.S. or give Trump a bloody nose through words," one diplomat said.
The EU leaders' second topic on Thursday, taxation, also threatens to expose transatlantic strains.
The European Commission on Wednesday proposed rules to make digital companies pay more tax, with U.S. tech giants such as Google, Facebook and Amazon set to foot a large chunk of a potential 5 billion euro ($6.1 billion)bill.
EU Economics Commissioner Pierre Moscovici brushed off accusations that he was going after rich American tech companies to enrich EU coffers and France, Germany, Italy, Britain and Spain welcomed the proposals in a joint statement.
However, some smaller countries fear the proposed tax would undermine their ability to attract multinationals and see the measure as more likely to shift tax revenue to bigger EU countries rather than raising more money.
