EU ministers are meeting this morning for urgent talks after the US president, Donald Trump, threatened to impose 30% tariffs on the bloc – despite what they believed were promising talks with the US administration on how to avoid them.
But in a letter issued over the weekend, Trump said:
-
"We have had years to discuss our Trading Relationship with The European Union, and we have concluded we must move away from these long-term, large, and persistent, Trade Deficits, engendered by your Tariff, and Non-Tariff, Policies, and Trade Barriers …
-
Our relationship has been, unfortunately, far from Reciprocal.”
That’s pretty much happening. The EU and Indonesia, the south Asia countries banding together, Canada and the EU… They’re just being quiet about it because Trump has explicitly said he’ll go on the attack at any sign of countries working together to defy him.
And these changes, like China switching to Brazil for their soy production the first time around, will likely be permanent. Because even when Trump is gone, the people who elected him will remain.