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President Donald Trump on Friday said he is “recommending a straight 50% Tariff on the European Union” after complaining that trade negotiations have stalled.
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The EU “has been very difficult to deal with,” Trump wrote. “Our discussions with them are going nowhere!”
The European Union, which was formed for the primary purpose of taking advantage of the United States on TRADE, has been very difficult to deal with. Their powerful Trade Barriers, Vat Taxes, ridiculous Corporate Penalties, Non-Monetary Trade Barriers, Monetary Manipulations, unfair and unjustified lawsuits against Americans Companies, and more, have led to a Trade Deficit with the U.S. of more than $250,000,000 a year, a number which is totally unacceptable. Our discussions with them are going nowhere! Therefore, I am recommending a straight 50% Tariff on the European Union, starting on June 1, 2025. There is no Tariff if the product is built or manufactured in the United States. Thank you for your attention to this matter!
I legitimately don’t understand why what’s left of the free world hasn’t all gotten together and agreed to tarrif America all at the same time.
Just throw insane tareifs, and let trump sit in it for a couple months while everyone ignores all his phone calls and requests for meetings.
That would actually work.
Because, as we’re experiencing, tariffs are a regressive tax on your own populace and hurt the most vulnerable. Also, they don’t have to. We’re pissing off enough regular people that they’re voluntarily buying made-anywhere-but-USA. Lastly, why provoke an idiot with a huge military?
They can and will dismantle American power just by not buying our debt and then supporting a chamge in the world’s reserve currency. Trump is screwing us for generations
You drastically overestimate how much stuff is made in America…
I do? I’m saying that there’s no reason for the world to band together and implement tariffs on us. Low volume would be another reason not to, but we do export a non-negligible amount worldwide. Most to NA, but over 300B to EU last year
There’s no reason for the world to put reciprocal tariffs in place that are actually reciprocal? The US President started this.
To get a sense of scale on how important US imports are to the EU. Total imports to the EU were $6.5T in 2024. The US was (as you said) about $300B. It’s 18% of US Exports. It’s 4.5% of EU imports. Significant, but trimming it down is probably fine.
What we do import from the US is fossil fuels. Oil & gas, and processed variants of that make up around ⅓ of all US exports to the EU. The short term need for US O&G went up with Russia invading Ukraine, and the has made the US supply more important. Thing is, that’s looking temporary. We’re also regearing to need far less of it. EV sales continue to rise (except Tesla’s). Renewable electricity generation gets bigger every year. In 2024 the EU spent 16% less on energy imports than 2023.
The US’s leverage over the EU is not economic. Sadly, right now it’s military. The EU doesn’t want to piss Trump off because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. We’d like the US to stand resolutely beside us in the defence against Russian aggression. Unfortunately Trump sees Putin as a role model, not an enemy and can’t bring himself to act against him.
Of goods made in other countries that go thru American corporations only as a middle man…
Tarrif America, companies from those other countries take over being the middle man.
The middle man can be replaced at a moments notice. It wouldn’t be damaging to any country’s economy, it would be a huge economic boost for them.
That’s what trump, and you, do t understand.
America needs the 3rd world to make stuff that we sell to other first world countries.
But no other economy on the planet needs America.
That depends on your definition of “stuff”.
Because we are transitioning away from the US and that takes time.
E.G. Canada’s government removed industrial tariffs temporarily but kept commercial good tariffs. This is so that Canadian industries can get the necessary tooling and other things from the US now and remove the US from Canadian logistics.
So that Canada can move to completely remove the US from the industry side.
This is an interesting long-view take, but is the government also providing loans and trying to spurr manufacturing, machine shops, etc. too? Without that, it’s just a dream to hope Canadian companies won’t just wait 4 years, really.
Why fight with european consumer prices and get people to moan against the EU or their gouvernement about price hikes? Fight with states actively pushing alternative IT services and defense industry from the EU, through advertising, through hybrid commercial war, spread rumors amongst conspiracy nuts, offer tax cuts for venture capital into EU firms. Get closer to friendlies and just turn your back to the US. Don’t engage, don’t fight. Simply ignore all carrots and sticks until the US gets out of that tantrum. Don’t dump US bonds though, make it illegal if need be, dumping bonds is just helping Trump bring down the value of the dollar, that’s a price to pay to put out that bully but it’s a temporary cost that can be recooped when you dump them strategicaly when the US economy will have to get itself out of the economic hole they are digging.
Trump can bring down the dollar as much as he wants already. It’s easy to destroy, to burn bridges, to make enemies. A bond is a deal you expect the USA to honor.
No, he can’t really go far with his political power he’ll just get entangled into more litigation… He needs to persuade countries to sell US bonds to bring down the value of the dollar in a significant enough way for project 25 to execute. He’s chosen the hard way so why would we satisfy him by doing exactly what he expects of us? Selling bonds isn’t cashing in on them, it’s just transfering the risk to someone else, a bonds market crash would dévalue the value of the dollar at the loss of the EU, china, japan, the UK etc… Let the dollar go on a softer landing (as it’s poised to do anyway, whatever happens on the bond market) let the country get back on tracks then resume activity on the bond market once the dollar has gained back some health. Accept some losses but have the overall financial losses much lighter for EU states and financial institutions on the long term. No need for the EU suffer for stuff done by america to itself.
And was proven to work by China as that’s literally what they did. But I think the fear of looking like they side with China is making them not do it. The taboo of standing with China is that taboo amongst western nations that they would sacrifice their health and wealth to not do it.
That’s definitely not what’s happening…
Although I know there are certain instances where the only thing that matters is defending far right authoritarians because they lied about their economic system. So I understand why I got a reply like that.
I’m a bit confused. Are you saying lots of Europeans are saying they stand with China besides the far right?