Trump’s post immediately pushed down U.S. stock futures and European markets, with indexes in Germany and France plunging 2%.

Donald Trump threatened imports from the European Union with a sweeping 50% tariff Friday, posting online that trade talks with the bloc are “going nowhere.”

In a post on his Truth Social platform, Trump wrote that he was “recommending a straight 50% Tariff on the European Union, starting on June 1, 2025.”

Just minutes earlier, Trump had also threatened Apple with a 25% tariff if it does not start producing iPhones in the United States — an outcome industry experts broadly see as a nonstarter.

“The concept of Apple producing iPhones in the U.S. is a fairy tale,” prominent tech analyst Dan Ives said in response to Trump’s threat Friday.

  • 1984
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    19
    ·
    18 hours ago

    Trump doesnt understand that a deal should benefit both partners, not just him.

    “The EU is so difficult”… Lols.

  • Buffalox@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    76
    ·
    edit-2
    19 hours ago

    OK Trump, but while you are trying to figure out what the most scary import tax is, and destroying American business globally, we are working on getting rid of American services and weapons. And China is now a less unpopular trading partner than USA in EU!!

    We shall see who wins in the long run…

      • NoForwardslashS@sopuli.xyz
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        34
        ·
        21 hours ago

        They worked out that “The Art of the Deal” means “agree to my deal right now, or I will shit the bed”.

        If you just don’t get in the bed you’re fine.

        • Buffalox@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          15
          ·
          19 hours ago

          I think here we call it. “Don’t interrupt your enemy when he is busy destroying himself.”

          • madame_gaymes@programming.dev
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            10
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            17 hours ago

            Pretty sure that’s a French thing (Napoleon), but maybe you’re French and that’s what you mean by “here.”

            Sun Tzu also said something similar before Napoleon (Art of War, Ch 4-2):

            To secure ourselves against defeat lies in our own hands, but the opportunity of defeating the enemy is provided by the enemy himself.

            • Buffalox@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              7
              ·
              17 hours ago

              Here is “the west”.
              Maybe Napoleon said it first IDK. I’m from Denmark, but I heard it from Americans.

    • krashmo@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      11
      ·
      18 hours ago

      He’s gonna be dead soon enough one way or another. He doesn’t give a fuck about the future. He’s just trying to profit as much as he can right now.

      • Buffalox@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        13
        ·
        edit-2
        19 hours ago

        Did you know that before Trump started this, the average tariff in EU on American goods was about 1%?
        So the question is why the fuck Trump really did this? Except we already know, the plan was to use tariffs as the main taxation income for government, and give extreme tax cuts to the rich.
        Trump is trying to be clever, to benefit himself and those that bribe him. But he is really stupid, and after he is finished everybody will be worse off.

    • floofloof@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      61
      ·
      edit-2
      23 hours ago

      “I’ve made 200 deals.”

      Donald Trump, April 25th 2025

      Then people pointed out that’s more deals than there are countries, then he started whining about how no one would make a deal with him. And now I think he made one deal with the UK, which he’ll probably go back on next week.

      • Buffalox@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        36
        ·
        edit-2
        23 hours ago

        UK just made a deal with EU including foods. This will make a chlorinated American chicken deal impossible. So I bet Trump could be pretty pissed about that if anybody tells him.

  • altphoto
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    8
    ·
    16 hours ago

    Just remember that some important projects are tittering on bankruptcy and success and are depending on collaboration with EU. If the tariffs affect the final cost, then the projects will fail. Simple as that. And you won’t get your IPod nano for Christmas.

    All of these tariff wars are so depressing to all of us just trying to get cool stuff made.

  • kubica@fedia.io
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    13
    ·
    23 hours ago

    Please go ahead, it should make more people aware of the boycott movement.

  • Pasta Dental@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    13
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    23 hours ago

    what I was expecting as well. he was waiting for the stock market to recover for his friends to sell, now that it’s almost back to Biden levels he can crash it again

  • Kühlschrank@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    9
    ·
    22 hours ago

    Maybe the EU learned from his own actions that you just have to push back until he caves under internal pressure

    • IsoKiero@sopuli.xyz
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      3 hours ago

      You don’t even need to push. Just wait a while until the toddler finds something else to focus on and forget what happened today.

      It was some time ago but a response from Canadian supplier to US customer went few rounds on social media. They informed that the item customer was buying was under a tariff and gave options to either pay up the tariffs, cancel the sale with no extra cost or just wait for few days and see what happens. And the really stupid part is that it was (and largely is) a viable strategy, at least on customer sales. For businesses that’s obviously a total nightmare, but that’s just one example on how ridiculous any kind of trade with the US is right now.

    • gedhrel@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      3 hours ago

      If you had a brace of five-syllable lines bracketing that and managed to reference the season, you’d have a perfect haiku.