German finance minister: agreement with US is still preferred option in tariff row

BERLIN, April 24 (Reuters) - Germany still hopes the European Union can find agreement with the United States to bring about a reduction in import tariffs but supports counter-measures if this fails, the country's finance minister said in a radio interview on Thursday.

"The position is very simple: Plan A is we want an agreement and the tariffs should go down instead of going up," Joerg Kukies told the Deutschlandfunk broadcaster, but said he backed the European Union's "plan B" if this doesn't work, which is to use countermeasures.

Kukies is in Washington currently attending the spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.