Trump Slaps 50% Tariffs on EU – as He Tells Starmer to Get Drilling for Oil
President Donald Trump plans to hit the European Union with a massive 50% tariff on all goods it sends to the US, starting on June 1st. The Telegraph has more.
Mr Trump berated the EU as “very difficult to deal with”, and said US negotiations with Brussels to avoid a transatlantic trade war were “going nowhere”.
The President’s unexpected escalation would appear to cover the entire $600 billion (£447 billion) flow of goods exports from the EU to America. It would likely provoke more than €95 billion (£80 billion) of EU retaliatory measures.
Mr Trump seems to have lost patience with Brussels, after reports in recent days suggesting Washington was unhappy with the offer that European negotiators had tabled. The two sides have been negotiating a climbdown from Mr Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’ tariff salvo of April 2nd. This added a 20% EU-specific tariff to his “baseline” 10% tariff, but was later paused for 90 days.
Mr Trump made his announcement in a post on his online platform Truth Social, in which he resurfaced his full list of grievances with Brussels: the EU’s large trade surplus with the US, its trade barriers, value-added tax, legal and regulatory action against US companies, “ridiculous corporate penalties” and “monetary manipulations”.
“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,” he wrote.
“Our discussions with them are going nowhere! Therefore, I am recommending a straight 50% tariff on the European Union, starting on June 1st 2025. There is no Tariff if the product is built or manufactured in the United States.”
A European Commission spokesman said Brussels would not be commenting until after senior trade officials from both sides had spoken to each other.
Worth reading in full.
Stock markets predictably plunged following the news:
Stock markets have slumped on both sides of the Atlantic after Donald Trump announced plans to impose a massive 50% tariff on EU exports to the US.
US stock markets opened down this afternoon as investors panicked at the prospect of an escalating US/EU trade war. Mr Trump also threatened tariffs against Apple’s made-in-India iPhones.
The benchmark S&P 500 dropped 0.9%, while the Dow Jones lost 0.8%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq fell 1.1%. Apple lost 2.3%.
The pan-European Stoxx 600, the German Dax, and the French Cac 40 indexes were down by about 1.2%, 1.7% and 2.2% on Friday afternoon.
The FTSE 100 fell by around 1.3% in the immediate aftermath of the announcement, which Mr Trump made on Truth social in the early afternoon, but has since clawed back some losses and was down by just over 0.5% on Friday at 3pm.
In the Spectator, Matthew Lynn says the EU is paying the price for failing to get a deal across the line while it still could.
Over the last few days, it offered a few minor concessions on imports of lobster from Maine, but that was about it. It refused to budge on agriculture, or cars, and even at the end of April it was still threatening Apple and Meta with huge fines as if everything was carrying on as normal. It complacently assumed it was in the clear and that President Trump was all bluster.
That has proved a fatal miscalculation. The American market will be open to goods from the UK, China, Canada, and probably soon Japan as well. But EU companies will face punitive levies. A Range Rover will face 10% tariffs, but a BMW 50%. Scottish or Canadian whisky will face modest levies, but cognac will be very highly taxed. And Ireland’s pharmaceutical industry, selling billions of dollars of medicines into the US market from offshore manufacturing hubs, could be wiped out. And the EU will only have itself to blame.
Meanwhile, Trump attacked Keir Starmer’s Net Zero drive and called for more drilling in the North Sea. Also from the Telegraph.
The US President said he “strongly” recommended the UK shift its focus away from renewables and back to fossil fuels.
He said Britain should “stop with the costly and unsightly windmills” and instead prioritise modern drilling.
Energy costs would then go “way down, and fast”, Mr Trump claimed in a post on his Truth Social website on Friday.
The comments represent a direct challenge to the approach being pursued by the Prime Minister and Ed Miliband, the Energy and Net Zero Secretary.
Sir Keir has committed to achieving the target of Net Zero emissions by 2050 and has placed a shift to clean energy at the heart of his premiership.
Labour pledged in its General Election manifesto to make Britain a “clean energy superpower” and to get to “zero-carbon electricity by 2030”.
The Prime Minister has said that oil and gas from the North Sea will be used during the transition to using more renewables. But Labour has vowed not to issue any new licences to explore new fields.
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We can look forward to another 3 and a half years of people telling us that everything that is going wrong in the world is Trump’s fault. While Biden was in power, everything going wrong in the world was someone else’s fault, definitely not his.
Eh? Whut? Yeah, bad Ruskies. When’s bathtime?
For as long as Trump keeps blaming all of the world for the fact that Americans voluntarily chose to spend their money in certain ways, it’s not exactly surprising that many people consider him a loose cannon. Likewise, criticizing profit-oriented businesses for selling stuff in places where a profit is to be had and taking advantage of whatever the policy to the local government du jour happens to be as good as they can as somehow selfish and disingenious is ridiculous. That’s how a so-called market works, Mr. POTUS, and businesses which don’t play according to its rules tend to go bust.
My own country is in a terrible state and has been for a long time. I don’t think President Trump can be blamed for that. In so far as he has any influence on our fate, it will on balance I think be a positive one. Our problems are our own to solve, and we are to blame for them. I am happy for the US that they have a better government at present than we do, but we have to look to our own house.
I fail to see how this would relate to my text.
The Biden administration caused great harms on America’s more-or-less voluntary allies by forcing them into their trade war against Russia and a host of other bizarre and harmful policies (climate change, transexualism etc). The Trump-administration seems to prefer a more direct way of harming the more-or-less voluntary allies of the USA, not the least because of Trump’s outright irrational stance on capitalism and market-driven economies and his desire to blame everyone else for policies implemented by previous US administrations.
Foreign (as seen from the USA) businesses are not at fault for selling stuff in the US market according to the conditions US administrations of that time were happy with. If American politicians (as class) want to blame someone for this, they have to blame themselves. The people controlling these businesses had been guilty of negligence had they not tried to exploit whatever opportunities presented themselves to them as good as they could.
Trump is doing what he thinks is right for his country, one presumes. We in the UK need to focus on what we are doing, not what the rest of the world is doing.
May I be permitted a small correction?
….”we in the UK need to focus on what we SHOULD BE doing….”.
We are currently in the hands of WEF, also delusional lunatics like Miliband, amateurs like Reeves, and very strange robotic pervs like Starmer. We should definitely NOT be doing anything they say
Indeed I would go so far as to say we should be doing exactly the opposite of whatever they say!
Maybe, he’s doing what he believes the tooth fairy tells him in his dreams. This doesn’t really matter because speculations about hidden “Whys” are generally pointless. He’s doing something. And there are grounds for criticizing what he’s doing. Trump I brought us Warp Speed Covaccines, lockdowns and mask mandates. Trump II brings us erratically blaming all of the world – preferably allies before enemies – for entirely homemade problems of the USA in the USA. If something positive comes of that – and I hope it fell – it’ll be the self-demolishing of the American empire and hopefully, all the madness its functionaries are keen to spread. Official German childbirth forms meanwhile (I saw that yesterday) have a tickbox for Geschlecht der leiblichen Mutter (sex of the person who gave birth — German doesn’t distinguish between sex and gender but uses Geschlecht for both) offering “male” and “female” as choices. That was part of the social justice agenda (or so it was claimed) of the previous US administration. That’s some real damage a US government has done to my country and Trump ranting about how businesses selling stuff for profit while obeying all applicable rules and regulation is somehow evil… Read more »
Trump is to blame for Everything!
As always, caveat emptor applies.
I didn’t write that. But he’s certainly responsible for what he’s actually doing (and talking).
And we in the U.K. are responsible for what is happening here. I don’t have the time or the energy to devote to thinking much about what is happening elsewhere.
You started a conversation about Trump. I’ve just answered a question.
Trump I brought us Warp Speed Covaccines, driven by Fauci, the Pharmaceuticals, and the Media.
Trump mentioned HCQ and was hounded.
Trump’s aim is to change the pattern of trade: while it has such a large trade deficit, the US cannot continue to import what it can make itself.
I would hardly call our hard working president a “loose cannon”. He has some of the world’s brightest people, starting with Elon Musk, advising him. No, Loose cannon does not come to mind. Try again.
Some people do. And his erratic behaviour and – at least partially – outright bizarre public statements certainly don’t help with that.
Trump’s behaviour is only erratic to those taking advantage of the lax trade policies of the US over the last 30+ years.
It probably wasn’t Biden’s fault as Dementia Joe barely knew what day of the week it was. What we wait to find out is who was pulling the puppet’s strings. Obummer seems the likely one.
I certainly don’t think World oil and gas prices would fall, and UK generators would still be buying fuel at international prices (unless the government intervenes). I don’t think the UK would have the capacity to affect international prices. However, the net cost to the UK of that energy would definitely fall as the Treasury reaped the taxes.
In the absence of Green taxes gas power generation is no doubt cheaper than renewables, so domestic and industry energy costs would certainly fall if they cut the government interventions.
I don’t doubt that there are plenty of good things to do with hydrocarbons rather than just burning them for energy. Replacing them could be achieved by building multiple nuclear power stations – but not if every one we build has a different design and regulation ‘package’.
Gas prices are VERY regional. Drilling more wells in the North Sea and onshore (with hydraulic fracturing) would massively reduce the gas price in the UK.
(Disclaimer: I am a North Sea drilling rig pig)
There is indeed a world oil price, but there is not a world gas price, due to the complexity of transporting methane compared to crude oil.
Thanks. I sit corrected. 🙂
I still think we should drill for gas and oil and start building nuke stations.
I concur completely.
The next government should issue every drilling licence applied for, approve some quick to build gas fired power stations, then long term go for nuclear.
If RR get their finger out the first compact nuke could soon be installed.
If RR don’t we will have to get US mini nukes.
I don’t think we produce boilers or turbines any more so the foreign exchange cost of a rush back to hydrocarbon or to nukes will be painful short term. All thanks to Cameron-Clegg and successors who applauded the physical destruction of generating sites.
I suggest a big ugly station near wherever Cameron lives.
You are of course right. But the godsend of having a bunch of ideological zealots in power will over the next few years create the conditions that most people will be faced with the economic reality of electing fools and supporting crackpot schemes akin to the childhood belief in the tooth fairy.
In many ways I see it as similar to the non election of Trump in the last presidential term. Our Yankee cousins faced the reality of idiots in power and acted decisively.
Let’s hope the same scenario is playing out in Europe and the UK. If not the slow decline will accelerate.
We should be getting the expertise together to plan out the nuclear industry’s future: not an excuse for delay but, if we want mass produced reactors, some thought (and knowledge) is required before we start construction, such as planning Education, so we can grow our own Engineers and suppliers. Chemists, Metallurgists as well as the assortment of Engineers and Physicists will be needed.
Much has been learnt over the last 70 years, but most construction has been driven by political thinking and timescales. Thorium reactors, especially LFTRs, look very promising, and work, but the techniques to maintain them need developing. All this needs to be in the mix.
And in the mean time, we have the Bowland Shale to supply us with gas. There’s around 500 years of supply (if we can extract it all), so planning for 50 years supply, while we develop nuclear, isn’t far fetched.
And we have plenty of Coal. Modern coal-fired power stations are amazingly clean and efficient. And the new coal fields, here and abroad, would be at able to utilise the latest technology.
We just need the political will, and the knowledge that we don’t have a Climate Emergency.
There is not A world oil price but there is a free market and prices internationally are linked and quickly respond to supply and demand everywhere.
Gas is slower to react for the reason you give but if we had a free market in energy UK prices would be driven down by supply from overseas as well as locally fracked gas.
non free markets as loss of freedom generally causes lower quality of life.
Off topic but had to share this. Today’s YouGov Chat topic is “What’s the point of work?”. No wonder this is turning into Clown World. I really do think some people believe that nobody should have to work and that if nobody worked, everything would be just dandy and run by machines, robots, AI.
The Machine Stops.
Great short story.
Was the first of the dystopian future warnings.
A great foresight.
Yevgeny Zamyatin’s 1920 book We paved the way for both Well’s BNW and 1984 (as instruction manuals for tax-cattle herd management systems offered as guidances to the predatory ruling class).
Some European history in a nutshell for Americans who have trouble understanding that the USA is not the center of the solar system and that everything else doesn’t revolve around it: The EU was formed to ensure that Germany would remain politically dominated by France. Its German founding father, Konrad Adenauer, was a Catholic from Cologne who – as mayor of this town – was already involved with plans to create a western German state independent from the Reich and closely aligned with France after the First World War. He disentangled himself from this movement before the ultimatively failed coup to create such a state and became of prominent politician of Zentrum party (Catholic party) during the Weimar republic. He personally sabotaged an attempt of the democratically elected first minister of Prussia to avoid a Nazi-takeover of this state and his party provided the missing votes which enabled the NSDAP to change the constitution to pass the enablement act. After the second world war, he was among the group of former politicians who founded the Zentrum successor party CDU (Christian Democractic Union). After he had gotten his separate west German state, he initiated the founding of the European Coal and… Read more »
The EU was formed to better allow lefties to control power regardless of election results.
In exactly the same way as airplanes have wings to enable them to have higher speed when sailing submerged or depth charges are used to shoot bombers from the sky.
Not true. The idea from Monnet was to prevent a war across Europe after the First World War. He failed to get it agreed but then came back with it when it was a redundant idea post Second World War when Europe was divided by NATO and WarPac, thus preventing individual countries from starting wars. It was a Brit who suggested starting out with a trading group that could evolve into a European Government.
I would not necessarily chose DJT’s phrases but there is no doubt the EU has been exploiting the US low tariffs while itself having high tariffs and other barriers to entry.
I suppose the EU thought the US would roll over for its tummy to be tickled just like Labour has done. They got that wrong, didn’t they.
Just wait until JD hears about the Parliamentary cheating in Germany or the continued two tier justice in the UK. I foresee specific sanctions.
Thankful that there’s one perfusion on power who sees the EU for what it is.
Is climate change caused by burning carbon based fuels and adding CO2 to the atmosphere?
Is oil a ‘fossil’ fuel (whatever that means) or is oil a natural byproduct of the Earth’s subterranean processes?
Do we understand the Earth’s process of formation correctly. Is ‘Continental drift’ just yet more bunk science and the Expanding Earth’ theory far more probable?
Having seen the unabashed aptitude for government to lie and the whole of supposedly accredited authority to follow that lead just blindly nodding I accept nothing and question everything by default.
Don’t just tell me I am wrong. Give me a logically reasoned argument demonstrating why you think I am wrong
There is no empirical evidence that CO2 is causing or will cause dangerous changes to climate. Or as Climatologist Judith Curry put it “Sure, all things being equal, CO2 may cause a little warming, but all things in earth’s climate are not equal”. ——But CO2 is also something else. It is the one gas that can be directly tied to Industrial Capitalism and that is what the climate change agenda is really all about. The transformation of the capitalist system to Global Socialism using climate change as the excuse.
Yes. The burgeoning system of, Socialistic or indeed Communistic, control to be employed is Technocracy and the Technocracy movement has always aimed to use units of energy as a system of account and allocation.
Space Weather drives much of Earth’s climate, and is modified by the natural resonances, such as ocean currents.
It affects the triggering of earthquakes. It even has an effect on human health. The rate of hearts attacks and strokes have a 11.5 year cycle, like the solar sunspot cycle.
It looks like it is ripe for investigation but, progress is slowed as it does make Climate Change Theory look ridiculous.
Where does Keith’s deal with the EU put his deal with the Donald.
I do hope Trump implements the 50% tariffs and it turns out to really have been a fatal miscalculation for the EU.
The EU is a bully and bullies have to be stood up to. Something our post-Thatcher, cowardly PMs, have NEVER understood.
Let’s be honest. Nobody wants to do business with a mismanaged continent or the UK. I am afraid it is that simple. When you have 650 parliamentarians and layers and layers of bureaucracy in a country, nothing gets accomplished. Eu and Uk both failing. Not a good trade choice.
I would hardly describe a drop of less than 2% and which was quickly followed by a rebound as a ‘slump’.