President Donald Trump said that negotiations with Brussels are fruitless and recommends imposing a 50% duty on imports from the European Union from June 1, 2025. He announced this in Truth Social, reports UNN.
It has been very difficult to deal with the European Union, which was created with the main purpose of taking advantage of the United States in trade. Their powerful trade barriers, value-added taxes, absurd corporate penalties, non-monetary trade barriers, monetary manipulations, unfair and unfounded lawsuits against American companies, etc. have led to a trade balance deficit with the US of over $250,000,000 a year, which is an absolutely unacceptable figure. Our negotiations with them are fruitless! Therefore, I recommend imposing direct 50% tariffs for the European Union, starting from June 1, 2025
Trump noted that the duty will not apply if the product is built or manufactured in the United States.
Addition
On May 16, it was reported that Trump said that the United States will set customs rates for its other trading partners "within the next two to three weeks", stressing that his administration does not have the opportunity to negotiate with all its trading partners at the same time.
Trump also stated that the European Union treats the United States very unfairly and is "meaner than China." This happened after agreements between the US and China to reduce tariffs.
The European Commission is lowering its economic growth estimates for the bloc in 2025 due to the effects of tariffs imposed by United States President Donald Trump.