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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!
The EU should use the Chinese method:
The US puts 50% The EU puts 50. The US puts 100 The EU puts 100 Trump says “I´m waiting for them to call me” The EU doesn´t call. Trump says 10%
Job done in 2 weeks.
just up our prices. No need to shoot ourselves in the foot. You want a 50% tarriff? I will increase the prices I sell my stuff to you by 50% too. That effectively turns their 50% into 125%. If you do this for stuff they can only get from here then they’ll quickly walk it back. Use their tarriffs against them, not do the same thing to our own citizens
You could do that by slapping export tariffs on things. It still harms whatever industry you do that to though.
He still doesn’t know what a tariff is.
Also, I appreciate that every picture I see of Trump, even on official news sources, is an unflattering one. They always make sure to catch him with his mouth looking like what it is, that being an asshole.
He doesn’t need to know. His supporters hear that corporations and other countries pay and they believe it, despite evidence to the contrary slapping them in their slack-jawed, dull-eyed faces.
Also, I appreciate that every picture I see of Trump, even on official news sources, is an unflattering one.
Err… that’s Ursula von der Leyen
Well, he doesn’t know what a trade deficit is either, so he’s got that going for him, which is nice.
Counting VAT as a trade deficit enabler is complete bullshit.
They could just say they’ll get rid of it and start a sales tax instead.
But honestly the whole thing is just an excuse anyway
Christ on a cracker. We are not at war with anyone. Therefore every single one of these tariffs are illegal. He does not have the authority to be doing this shit and I am so fucking sick of it. Yes I am aware that the lapdog congress will do nothing to stop him. Yes I am still going to complain anyway.
Dude just wants to crater the US economy, specifically the stock market, and kill what credibility the US has thrived on since WW2. Can’t help but feel Putin has a finger in this cause a weak US makes Russia look stronger.
I need to explain to people why this is so amazingly stupid:
You are literally giving Europe an excuse to put tariffs on American goods and services, which they want to anyway, to encourage domestic producers.
Also, you’re making it easier for them to buy directly from south Korea, Japan and even China, especially since those countries can’t sell as easily to the US.
For Europe this is an absolute win/win.
But honestly, this sounds like a way for Trump to put pressure on Europe to back off on Ukraine, as he probably thinks the EU is reliant on US LNG, which is kind of isn’t really.
Another decision that benefits no one except Russia. Their asset sure is paying off.
Ironically, tariffs also crashes the price of oil which also hurts Russia.
Do you think Putin will need for anything for the rest of his life? Hurting Russia hurts the people, and the oligarchs are perfectly fine with that…
Just ignore him. He’s proven multiple times he will cave.
If he does that, the prices that rise most in the US will be medical products, medicines and motor vehicles.
The EU does have a trade surplus in goods with the US. The US has a nearly comparable surplus in trade of services.
If the EU were to respond by taxing US services harshly, we’d experience more expensive licenses and advertising costs. Year of the Linux desktop? Year of the dark red Google?
The EU will not tax products which are critical for the European economy until/unless there is a viable local alternative.
What I expect the EU to do is to subsidise those fledging local alternatives. And yes, this is against WTO rules, but I guess nobody cares about that anymore.
It certainly should. Of course they shouldn’t shoot themselves in the foot, like Trump is, but it’s like play chess with a pigeon. It’s not about normal tactics.
As a European software developer I would love to see that.
Unfortunately I’m afraid those most likely to cry foul aren’t Americans, but the majority of European tech businesses who are either reselling MSFT bullshit or completely locked in AWS/Azure/GCP. Open-source/sovereign software services are the exception, not the rule.
Oh, in Europe we have good math books for third-graders. Many pictures and drawings in it too. And not that many nasty equations.
We could send him one or two …
The fact that we the EU are still trying to negotiate with the US is pathetic. We should not be entertaining this clique.
Allies on paper, EU can’t simply tell tramp to go fuck himself like China can, for now.
Good point but why do they get to tell us to go fuck ourselves then? We are also their allies on paper.
Well, the alliance was not symmetric to start with, the US used to call the shots and the EU would follow if it wasn’t a stupid decision or sit on its hands otherwise. russia’s invasion and the US’s passivity is challenging that.
russia’s invasion and the US’s passivity is challenging that.
Passivity? As in the US should do more than use Ukraine as a proxy, but should get involved in a war with Russia to defend Ukraine?
All I’m saying is that Ukraine finally made strikingly clear that in the current configuration Europe is the junior partner in NATO and that Europe needs to have its own means in the future to defend its own interests (during the cold war, those interests were always aligned, so it was never a problem). But once that happens, Europe won’t remain the junior partner anymore.
As a lemm.ee user, you should be perfectly aware that if Ukraine is anyone’s proxy, then of Estonia: Ukraine is following Estonian doctrine on how to deal with Russia to a t.
Because someone needs to be the adult, and that person is never going to be Trump.
I mean europe just have to wait 4 years.
Hey people, looks like we have an optimist here! 😊
“recommending” to who? he is ruling alone and everyone know that.
His recommendation is to the apparently “beautiful face” in the mirror that his malignant narcissistic mind sees. The rest of us see an ugly old criminal tyrant with orange painted skin.
Not entirely. Congress and the Supreme Court are filled with his sycophants.
They mean he alone makes the decisions so he doesn’t need to “recommend” anything to anyone.
IIRC Trade Enforcement Regulation allows, among other options, for ignoring other country’s patents and trademarks until someone else says it’s time to stop. Correct me if I’m wrong.Edit: Seems like I misremembered, because I can’t find it mentioned in the regulation 654/2014, my bad
Edit 2: Okay, I think I’ve found it - 654/2014 was amended by 2021/167, and as far as I understand legalese THAT one allows for suspension of intellectual property rights. I’ll wait with un-stroking the original paragraph until someone more knowledgeable confirms (or denies) my understanding
Why is EU speaking german. Weird
My guess is language other than English was used to further differentiate it from America, and German was chosen for being I think second most used language on Lemmy
It’s also the biggest language (in terms of native speakers) in the EU. Not that it’s anywhere close to a majority…
Broken English perfectly differentiates itself from non Broken English that is spoken in US for example
No shit but I don’t see it fitting. Does “EU” suddenly speak Italian if an italian EU commission president came to power? It makes more sense what the people of EU commonly speak, aka broken English. As with all country memes are
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Gee, wouldn’t it be a surprise if a stock selloff by administration people had occurred just before this announcement? No one would expect that.
Right before a federal holiday weekend, too? Hmmmm…
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.
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?
