EU warns that its trade with the US could be effectively wiped out if Trump follows through on his threat | CNN Business
www.cnn.com
The European Union has warned that its trade with the United States could be effectively wiped out if Washington makes good on its threat to slap a 30% tariff on goods imported from the bloc.

The European Union has warned that its trade with the United States could be effectively wiped out if Washington makes good on its threat to slap a 30% tariff on goods imported from the bloc.

A tariff of “30%, or anything above 30%… has more or less the same effect. So, practically it prohibits the trade,” Maroš Šefčovič, the EU’s trade commissioner, said as he arrived ahead of an EU ministerial meeting in Brussels on Monday.

Šefčovič said it will “be almost impossible” for the bloc to continue its current level of trade with America if that new tariff rate is implemented on August 1 – the date stipulated by US President Donald Trump in his letter to the EU on Saturday.

  • ℍ𝕂-𝟞𝟝@sopuli.xyzEnglish
    171·
    9 hours ago

    I imagine the strategy everywhere is to keep the lid on this while you can shift your trade elsewhere. TBH the shift should have started during the first Trump admin, but to be fair, nobody thought that Trump can out-Trump himself this bad.

    • nfh@lemmy.worldEnglish
      10·
      9 hours ago

      Suddenly cutting off a lot of trade suddenly is a stupid and reckless move that would hurt people in their countries as much as it would hurt the US. It’s basically the same behavior as Trump with his absurd tariffs, banning trade with a country, and taxing people obscenely to buy things from that country mostly work out to the same effects in practice.

      Incentivizing other trade partners, and maybe slowly disincentivizing the US makes a lot of sense though. Maybe it made more sense years ago, but as they say, if the best time was yesterday, the next-best time is today.

      • ℍ𝕂-𝟞𝟝@sopuli.xyzEnglish
        6·
        8 hours ago

        The thing I’m wondering about is that even the MIC of Europe and the US is intertwined, inasmuch the US is switching to German rifles from their old M4s, and a significant portion of the F35 is also manufactured in the EU. I wonder if that’s in scope of the tariffs, or if it’s purchased by the US government directly so it would be exempt.

        • yumpsuit@lemmy.worldEnglish
          2·
          7 hours ago

          It’s almost a moot point with how many taxable components going into those jet chunks could be impacted by the tariff before the US government procures the finished good. The resulting cost overrun is part of the grift.