United States Threatens To Place New Tariffs On European Union

President Donald Trump is contemplating a plan to raise tariffs on products from the European Union (EU).

The U.S. president took to social media last week to express frustration with the status of trade negotiations with the EU and to suggest that his administration will impose a 50 percent tariff on imports from the EU starting June 1. “Our discussions with them are going nowhere,” President Trump said Friday, while calling out trade barriers like value-added taxes as a driver of a “totally unacceptable” trade deficit between the United States and the EU.

The Associated Press noted U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent attempted in a Friday television interview to provide some clarity regarding President Trump’s post. Secretary Bessent said the EU has a “collective action problem” because its 27 member states are being represented by “this one group in Brussels,” such that the “underlying countries don’t even know what the EU is negotiating on their behalf.” The Treasury secretary also said the United States would soon announce trade deals with several countries.

As Connecting the Dots reported two weeks ago, the EU had been preparing its own countermeasures to U.S. duties, but paused implementation until July 14 to give trade negotiations with the United States a chance to work. The planned retaliatory measures would target imports worth roughly $107 billion. President Trump’s threat to raise tariffs on the EU came only one day after European leaders offered a trade proposal to the United States that included phased tariff cuts on non-sensitive goods, plus cooperation in energy, artificial intelligence, and digital infrastructure.