Trump calls for 50% tariff on European Union starting June 1
President Donald Trump on Friday said he is “recommending a straight 50% Tariff on the European Union” after complaining that trade negotiations have stalled.
The steep new import duties would start on June 1, Trump wrote on Truth Social.
The EU “has been very difficult to deal with,” Trump wrote of the 27-nation bloc. “Our discussions with them are going nowhere!”
Trump’s announcement came less than 30 minutes after he threatened to impose a tariff of at least 25% on Apple’s iPhones if the company did not start manufacturing them in the United States.
U.S. stock futures sank immediately following the posts, which showed the Republican president once again wielding the threat of massive import taxes in response to economic activity he disfavors.
European stock markets fell 2%.
It’s a reversal in momentum for Trump, who recently touted preliminary trade “deals” with China and the United Kingdom and has backed off other tariff proposals. Markets were encouraged by those moves, as investors felt relief from the economic uncertainty and instability Trump’s tariffs had threatened to create.
But Trump “believes that the EU proposals have not been of the same quality that we’ve seen from our other important trading partners,” U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a Fox News interview Friday morning.
Asked if the EU will be able to negotiate in the nine days before the 50% tariffs kick in, Bessent said, “I would hope that this would light a fire under the EU.”
Trump’s posts tee up a potentially tense exchange between U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer and his European counterpart later Friday. Greer is expected to tell European Trade Commissioner Maros Sefcovic in a meeting that Brussels’ latest move in ongoing trade talks fails to meet U.S. expectations, the FT reported.
The EU was the second-largest purchaser of U.S. exports in 2022, taking in nearly $351 billion of American goods, according to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.
Source: CNBC
