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President Donald Trump on Friday said he is “recommending a straight 50% Tariff on the European Union” after complaining that trade negotiations have stalled.
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The EU “has been very difficult to deal with,” Trump wrote. “Our discussions with them are going nowhere!”
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. Their powerful Trade Barriers, Vat Taxes, ridiculous Corporate Penalties, Non-Monetary Trade Barriers, Monetary Manipulations, unfair and unjustified lawsuits against Americans Companies, and more, have led to a Trade Deficit with the U.S. of more than $250,000,000 a year, a number which is totally unacceptable. Our discussions with them are going nowhere! Therefore, I am recommending a straight 50% Tariff on the European Union, starting on June 1, 2025. There is no Tariff if the product is built or manufactured in the United States. Thank you for your attention to this matter!
IIRC Trade Enforcement Regulation allows, among other options, for ignoring other country’s patents and trademarks until someone else says it’s time to stop. Correct me if I’m wrong.Edit: Seems like I misremembered, because I can’t find it mentioned in the regulation 654/2014, my bad
Edit 2: Okay, I think I’ve found it - 654/2014 was amended by 2021/167, and as far as I understand legalese THAT one allows for suspension of intellectual property rights. I’ll wait with un-stroking the original paragraph until someone more knowledgeable confirms (or denies) my understanding
Why is EU speaking german. Weird
No shit but I don’t see it fitting. Does “EU” suddenly speak Italian if an italian EU commission president came to power? It makes more sense what the people of EU commonly speak, aka broken English. As with all country memes are
My guess is language other than English was used to further differentiate it from America, and German was chosen for being I think second most used language on Lemmy
Broken English perfectly differentiates itself from non Broken English that is spoken in US for example
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Looks like that’d be bad for EU pharmaceuticals and auto manufacturers in particular.
WRT autos, it’d be doing the opposite of eliminating the chicken tax.
EDIT: Assuming (a) that tariffs go into force, (b) stay in place (with China they were cut to 30% before long), (c) exceptions don’t show up (with China, electric devices were exempted), (d) and disregarding price elasticity of demand and how readily a given good could be obtained from elsewhere, all of which might, I expect, be substantial factors in impact.
EDIT2:
European autos index sheds 3.6% after Trump 50% tariff threat on EU
I guess that’d support an argument of auto manufacturers being impacted.
goes looking for anything regarding a pharmaceutical breakdown
Washington sources around 80% of its active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) from China, India, and the EU. In 2024, pharmaceuticals were the top US import from the EU, including $127 billion (€117 billion) worth of semaglutide, a key component in popular weight-loss medications.
Hmm. That’s a lot. That single chemical was imported at three times the value of all motor vehicle imports.
goes looking
I think that Euronews must have that statistic wrong. Semaglutide is big, but not that big. And that doesn’t mesh with the above bar chart I provided from the European Commission at all.
https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/semaglutide-market-report
The global semaglutide market size was estimated at USD 28.43 billion in 2024 and is projected to grow at a CAGR of 10.47% from 2025 to 2035.
looks further
Oh, Euronews must have mixed up the value of the whole pharma import category with the specific chemical. Smooth, guys. CNBC looks like it has it correct:
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/02/13/trumps-tariffs-will-hit-these-european-union-products-hardest.html
The top U.S. import from the EU in 2024, by category and dollar value, was pharmaceutical products, according to data from the U.S. Trade Census analyzed by ImportGenius. Included in that $127 billion worth of EU imports was semaglutide, an ingredient used in the popular GLP-1 weight loss drugs from Novo Nordisk, Ozempic and Wegovy. The GLP-1 compound was the sixth-largest import from the EU to the U.S., at $15.6 billion.
I will say that, even so, a major price increase there seems like it’d be pretty rough for a lot of Trump voters. Like, semaglutide is something that you’d be given if you’re obese.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semaglutide
Semaglutide is an anti-diabetic medication used for the treatment of type 2 diabetes and an anti-obesity medication used for long-term weight management.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/10/health/ozempic-glp-1-survey-kff
1 in 8 adults in the US has taken Ozempic or another GLP-1 drug, KFF survey finds
https://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/php/data-research/index.html
National Diabetes Statistics Report
Prevalence varied significantly by education level, which is an indicator of socioeconomic status. Specifically, 13.1% of adults with less than a high school education had diagnosed diabetes versus 9.1% of those with a high school education and 6.9% of those with more than a high school education (Appendix Table 3).
Trump’s rise back in 2016 was strongly supported by low-education voters in the Republican primaries; I remember people talking about demographic analysis:
Trump overwhelmingly leads rivals in support from less educated Americans
And presently, that’s also true for the Republican Party relative to the Democratic Party:
https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/14/politics/the-biggest-predictor-of-how-someone-will-vote
“The biggest single, best predictor of how someone’s going to vote in American politics now is education level. That is now the new fault line in American politics,” Sosnik told David Chalian on the “CNN Political Briefing” podcast.
Trump’s rise over the past three election cycles, Sosnik argued, “accelerated and completed this political realignment based on education that had been forming since the early ’70s, at the beginning of the decline in the middle class.”
As the US transitions to a 21st century economy, there’s a rift between the people who attain education – “that’s become the basic Democratic Party,” he said, comparing them with people who feel left behind, “that group of voters is now the modern Republican Party base.”
So you simultaneously have:
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Low-education Americans having particularly supported Trump.
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Medicaid (government medical services subsidy for low-income Americans) being slashed by the GOP, which transfers medical costs off taxpayers and more-heavily onto poor people who suffer from medical conditions; low-education Americans greatly disproportionately depend on this subsidy.
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In theory, states could simply increase medical subisidy outside of Medicaid, but the fact that Medicaid provides federal funding causes fiscal transfers across states. Most of the states that pitch in to the federal budget are (wealthier) Democratic states. Aside from New Mexico, which is very Democratic and makes heavy use of Medicaid, most states that heavily use Medicaid are poorer Republican-voting states. West Virgina had the highest level of popular support for Trump in the last Presidential election, had every county get a majority vote for Trump, had the single county with the highest share of Trump support in the US…and the second-highest level of Medicaid dependence.
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Tariffs that effectively amount to a substantial consumption tax on medicine are — assuming these Trump EU tariffs go into force — being put into place. Medicine has a low price elasticity of demand — one is pretty much going to have to pay for that whether it’s expensive or not — so I’d think that people who have to have medicine are going to likely have to pay such a tax. They can’t easily just not get medicine.
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A major increase looks to be on a drug that is considerably-disproportionately needed by low-education Americans.
I have to say that this kind of adds to some observations that a number of high-profile Trump policies seem to be disproportionately financially bad for Trump supporters.
Started when I was noticing that the Trump administration seemed to be doing a lot of things that looked to be really negative for American agriculture. I’d intuitively expect a Republican trifecta to favor agriculture; rural states tend to vote Republican, and rural areas within states tend to vote Republican. But a lot of things, from crackdowns on illegal immigration (one of the most-economically-important areas for illegal immigrants is agricultural work that requires manual labor) to the likely impact of countertariffs (China has, in the past, targeted American soy farmers with countertariffs, and you normally want low barriers to trade if you’re globally competitive, which American agriculture generally is) seem to have real negatives for agriculture. Oh, and cutting SNAP (food stamps, a federal subsidy for food for low-income Americans). It used to be that federal subsidy for agriculture mostly took the form of subsidizing crop insurance, but I understand that over the decades, it shifted to SNAP to help build political support; this combines a subsidy for the poor and a subsidy for agriculture, so one can use political support from both factions.
https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/farm-economy/farm-commodity-policy/farm-bill-spending
Examples of Farm Act programs provided with mandatory funding include the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) as well as most commodity and conservation programs.
If you’re an American farmer and are looking at a pie chart like that, you probably don’t want to cut nutrition assistance…but that’s exactly what’s happening.
During the first Trump administration, the administration did send financial support to American farmers to help mitigate the damage from the trade war with China, and I was guessing that maybe that’d improve its popularity in the sense that Trump was sending very visible financial aid and the harm was indirect and harder to see, but the material I was able to find, including publications from generally-Republican farming regions, seemed to be pretty unenthusiastic about the prospect of trade wars.
I kind of feel like I’d like to see an economist who specializes in political economy kind of walk through this, because it’s left me more-than-a-little-puzzled. I can believe Trump burning someone who voted for him and maybe doesn’t have a great handle on the impact of his policies, but one would think that the Republican Congressional delegation would be expected to look out for constituent interests, and these don’t seem to do this. And agricultural industry associations like the Farm Bureau have not been happy either, and they’re going to have bean-counters who should know the relevant numbers and inputs taking a pretty close look at this:
https://www.fb.org/news-release/afbf-new-tariffs-will-impact-americas-farmers
American Farm Bureau President Zippy Duvall today expressed alarm about potential harm to farmers resulting from the order signed by President Trump imposing stiff tariffs on the United States’ top three agricultural markets by value. An economic emergency was declared to put duties of 25% on imports from Mexico and Canada, with limited exceptions, as well as 10% on all imports from China. Canada and Mexico both announced they would impose retaliatory measures.
“Farm Bureau members support the goals of security and ensuring fair trade with our North American neighbors and China, but, unfortunately, we know from experience that farmers and rural communities will bear the brunt of retaliation. Harmful effects of retaliation to farmers ripple through the rest of the rural economy.
“In addition, over 80% of the United States’ supply of a key fertilizer ingredient — potash — comes from Canada. Tariffs that increase fertilizer prices threaten to deliver another blow to the finances of farm families already grappling with inflation and high supply costs.
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I legitimately don’t understand why what’s left of the free world hasn’t all gotten together and agreed to tarrif America all at the same time.
Just throw insane tareifs, and let trump sit in it for a couple months while everyone ignores all his phone calls and requests for meetings.
That would actually work.
Because, as we’re experiencing, tariffs are a regressive tax on your own populace and hurt the most vulnerable. Also, they don’t have to. We’re pissing off enough regular people that they’re voluntarily buying made-anywhere-but-USA. Lastly, why provoke an idiot with a huge military?
They can and will dismantle American power just by not buying our debt and then supporting a chamge in the world’s reserve currency. Trump is screwing us for generations
You drastically overestimate how much stuff is made in America…
I do? I’m saying that there’s no reason for the world to band together and implement tariffs on us. Low volume would be another reason not to, but we do export a non-negligible amount worldwide. Most to NA, but over 300B to EU last year
Of goods made in other countries that go thru American corporations only as a middle man…
Tarrif America, companies from those other countries take over being the middle man.
The middle man can be replaced at a moments notice. It wouldn’t be damaging to any country’s economy, it would be a huge economic boost for them.
That’s what trump, and you, do t understand.
America needs the 3rd world to make stuff that we sell to other first world countries.
But no other economy on the planet needs America.
There’s no reason for the world to put reciprocal tariffs in place that are actually reciprocal? The US President started this.
To get a sense of scale on how important US imports are to the EU. Total imports to the EU were $6.5T in 2024. The US was (as you said) about $300B. It’s 18% of US Exports. It’s 4.5% of EU imports. Significant, but trimming it down is probably fine.
What we do import from the US is fossil fuels. Oil & gas, and processed variants of that make up around ⅓ of all US exports to the EU. The short term need for US O&G went up with Russia invading Ukraine, and the has made the US supply more important. Thing is, that’s looking temporary. We’re also regearing to need far less of it. EV sales continue to rise (except Tesla’s). Renewable electricity generation gets bigger every year. In 2024 the EU spent 16% less on energy imports than 2023.
The US’s leverage over the EU is not economic. Sadly, right now it’s military. The EU doesn’t want to piss Trump off because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. We’d like the US to stand resolutely beside us in the defence against Russian aggression. Unfortunately Trump sees Putin as a role model, not an enemy and can’t bring himself to act against him.
That depends on your definition of “stuff”.
Because we are transitioning away from the US and that takes time.
E.G. Canada’s government removed industrial tariffs temporarily but kept commercial good tariffs. This is so that Canadian industries can get the necessary tooling and other things from the US now and remove the US from Canadian logistics.
So that Canada can move to completely remove the US from the industry side.
This is an interesting long-view take, but is the government also providing loans and trying to spurr manufacturing, machine shops, etc. too? Without that, it’s just a dream to hope Canadian companies won’t just wait 4 years, really.
And was proven to work by China as that’s literally what they did. But I think the fear of looking like they side with China is making them not do it. The taboo of standing with China is that taboo amongst western nations that they would sacrifice their health and wealth to not do it.
The taboo of standing with China is that taboo amongst western nations that they would sacrifice their health and wealth to not do it.
That’s definitely not what’s happening…
Although I know there are certain instances where the only thing that matters is defending far right authoritarians because they lied about their economic system. So I understand why I got a reply like that.
I’m a bit confused. Are you saying lots of Europeans are saying they stand with China besides the far right?
Why fight with european consumer prices and get people to moan against the EU or their gouvernement about price hikes? Fight with states actively pushing alternative IT services and defense industry from the EU, through advertising, through hybrid commercial war, spread rumors amongst conspiracy nuts, offer tax cuts for venture capital into EU firms. Get closer to friendlies and just turn your back to the US. Don’t engage, don’t fight. Simply ignore all carrots and sticks until the US gets out of that tantrum. Don’t dump US bonds though, make it illegal if need be, dumping bonds is just helping Trump bring down the value of the dollar, that’s a price to pay to put out that bully but it’s a temporary cost that can be recooped when you dump them strategicaly when the US economy will have to get itself out of the economic hole they are digging.
Trump can bring down the dollar as much as he wants already. It’s easy to destroy, to burn bridges, to make enemies. A bond is a deal you expect the USA to honor.
No, he can’t really go far with his political power he’ll just get entangled into more litigation… He needs to persuade countries to sell US bonds to bring down the value of the dollar in a significant enough way for project 25 to execute. He’s chosen the hard way so why would we satisfy him by doing exactly what he expects of us? Selling bonds isn’t cashing in on them, it’s just transfering the risk to someone else, a bonds market crash would dévalue the value of the dollar at the loss of the EU, china, japan, the UK etc… Let the dollar go on a softer landing (as it’s poised to do anyway, whatever happens on the bond market) let the country get back on tracks then resume activity on the bond market once the dollar has gained back some health. Accept some losses but have the overall financial losses much lighter for EU states and financial institutions on the long term. No need for the EU suffer for stuff done by america to itself.
Gee, wouldn’t it be a surprise if a stock selloff by administration people had occurred just before this announcement? No one would expect that.
Right before a federal holiday weekend, too? Hmmmm…
So it’s Putin week again. Stubb prepping a plane to go test hot tubs in Florida?
Who gives a shit? Fuck the US. DJT is a pussy. See what just happened with China.
Still here, huh?
I wonder what’ll happen to Tech giants’ revenue in the EU if they decide to get serious about this.
Another decision that benefits no one except Russia. Their asset sure is paying off.
Ironically, tariffs also crashes the price of oil which also hurts Russia.
Do you think Putin will need for anything for the rest of his life? Hurting Russia hurts the people, and the oligarchs are perfectly fine with that…
Alrighty then, every MB of EU-user-generated data transferred to servers of US digital services now incurs a fee of 0.1€.
If you don’t pay, or during ongoing proceedings, the packets are not forwarded to the IP range of that service.
I bet that would resolve all problems very quickly.
Say goodbye to US jobs when companies can’t afford to keep going
“recommending” to who? he is ruling alone and everyone know that.
Not entirely. Congress and the Supreme Court are filled with his sycophants.
They mean he alone makes the decisions so he doesn’t need to “recommend” anything to anyone.
His recommendation is to the apparently “beautiful face” in the mirror that his malignant narcissistic mind sees. The rest of us see an ugly old criminal tyrant with orange painted skin.
Just imagine what was agreed on in the 2 hr phone conversation between Trump and Putin?
very stable genius
Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution vests the power to lay and collect tariffs with Congress.
Are we going to just ignore it? Technically tarrifs are supposed to be imposed by an act of congress, not the orange manchild in chief.
Congress has long ago decided to stop being a coequal branch of government. Same now with SCOTUS… They’ve ceded so much authority to the executive that they almost can’t fight back now. Impeachment is the only option left and Republicans won’t/can’t. Our remaining hope is that Democrats will/can in 2 years. AND that significant reforms follow that will limit the president again.
Otherwise, we’ve become Turkey. A representative republic in name only.
Otherwise, we’ve become Turkey. A representative republic in name only.
You are already there… even assuming the ridiculous notion that you’d have free and fair elections in 2 years, the damage is done. In 2 years time, the USA won’t be salvageable… I have huge doubts it can be salvageable today
If by “we” you mean the American people, yes it will be ignored as they seem to fall into 3 categories at the moment:
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completely clueless to the reality around them
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know this is bad but waiting for someone else to do the job or really entice them into action with a nice juicy carrot
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completely in agreement with the orange turd
I am waiting for AOC to call for the assembling of an army to wage war upon the Dogey Confederates. Until then, I am now learning how to safely and effectively use a firearm, so that I can serve Free America. Had my first lesson a couple days ago, and will do my second after getting some extra magazines and ammo crates.
Given a year or so, I should be able to reliably miss the farmers and livestock that are several hundred meters beyond the impact berm.
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