Brazil's government said it intends to implement retaliatory measures against the EU for curbing imports of its steel in reaction to US protectionist trade measures ordered by President Donald Trump.

Brazil’s government said Monday it intends to implement retaliatory measures against the EU for curbing imports of its steel in reaction to US protectionist trade measures ordered by President Donald Trump.

Notification had been sent to the World Trade Organization that Brazil “could adopt measures in order to rebalance its trade with the European Union because of the safeguard measures in the steel sector,” it said in a statement.

Brazil said it also sent Monday a request to the EU for compensation over the import restrictions that came into force at the beginning of February.

The EU announced last month it was going ahead with limiting steel imports from producers around the world — including Brazil — to mid-2021 because of fears its market could be flooded with the metal due to “the unilateral US measures restricting imports of steel to the American market.”

Trump in July last year announced tariffs of 25 percent on steel imports and 10 percent on aluminum imports from a long list of countries, including those in the EU as well as Brazil, Canada, China and Mexico, to protect “essential security interests.”

That prompted provisional retaliatory duties against the United States from many of the impacted countries and the EU.

The WTO has already agreed to hear complaints over the US measure as well as Washington’s complaint over the retaliatory tariffs.

A day after Trump said he was going to impose the tariffs he tweeted that “trade wars are good, and easy to win.”

Brazil’s right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro, who took office seven weeks ago, is an open admirer of Trump and his nationalist policies meant to spur domestic industry.