The European heads of state and government warned on Monday that the threat from US President Donald Trump, to expand the EU for the EU, risked a trade war to cause economic damage on both sides of the Atlantic.
The head of foreign policy of the European Union, Kaja Kallas, said if the United States and Europe started a trade war, “then the one who laughs is China on the side.”
“We are very connected. We need America and America too,” she said and spoke before an informal assembly of EU leaders in Brussels.
EU diplomats say that the 27-nation block prepares possible answers, but has to see what Trump’s next step is before it ends something. They said the goal was to avoid the fire to pour fuel onto the fire.
Trump told the 27 nations of the European Union that they were next in line after he decided to impose Mexico, Canada and China relaxing tariffs.
“It will definitely happen with the European Union. I can tell you that you really took advantage of us,” Trump told reporters and affirmed complaints about a trade deficit on Sunday.
“They don’t take our cars, they don’t take our agricultural products. They take almost nothing and we take everything from them.”
When Canada and Mexico tried to ward off tariffs from the United States, the members of the EU are that President Donald Trump also imposed tariffs.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz struck a cautious tone and asked the EU and the USA to work together.
“It is clear that as a strong economic area, we can form our own future and react to tariff policy … but the perspective and the goal should be that things lead to cooperation,” he said.
Causes regarding the European auto sector
The German conservative opposition leader Friedrich Merz, who could become Chancellor after the elections on February 23, said late Sunday that the tariffs risk back.
“Trump will now also recognize that the tariffs that he prevents are not paid by those who import in America. Instead, they have to be paid for by consumers in America,” said Merz.
Front burner23:46The Trump Tariff Tariff was Trade and she was
The French central bank governor Francois Villeroy de Galhau said that Trump’s tariffs were “very brutal” and would particularly affect the car sector.
“Everyone loses such a protectorist trade war,” he said France Info Radio.
The stocks of car manufacturers fell on Monday due to concerns about the effects of tariffs.
In his complaints about the trade balance with the EU, Trump focused solely on the trade in the goods.
The EU consistently exported more goods to the USA than it imported, and the deficit of the US goods trading was 155.8 billion euros in 2023 ($ 159.5 billion).
However, in the services, the United States has a surplus of exports on imports with the European Union of 104 billion euros (106.7 billion US dollars) in 2023.
Milder conversation about Great Britain
Trump said on Sunday that Great Britain, although it went to trade, “no more” than he thought it could be able to avoid tariffs, and added the imbalance: “I think that you could be worked out. “
The British Prime Minister Keir Starrer told reporters at the weekend: “It is early days and what I want to see are strong trade relationships, and in the discussions that I have had with President Trump, we focused on it.”
The United States are Great Britain’s largest trading partners as a single country, although the European Union is larger as a block. Less than a third of the British trade with the USA are located in goods that could be exposed to tariffs, with the rest consisting of services.
Starer was also in Brussels and hoped to improve relationships with the EU according to the Brexit split, which had arisen from a referendum from 2016. His Labor government hoped to agree to scrap the trade in bureaucracy with European allies.
