Former US official: Joint retaliation against US tariffs unlikely

AlArabiya English

While possible, a joint retaliation against US tariffs by its partners is unlikely, former Deputy Director of the National Economic Council Everett Eissenstat says.

Transcript

00:00I mean, do you think it's completely far removed from reality to think there could be a scenario

00:05in which former trade allies, partners of the United States get together, they talk amongst

00:10themselves and they basically try to inflict collective harm on the U.S. economy? I mean,

00:17the essence of this is, do you see all of this boomeranging back and essentially damaging the

00:21U.S. economy? I think conceptually what you said could happen. I think practically it won't because

00:26every economy is different and every economy has different interests. And the reality is that I

00:31think that President Trump is also willing to engage in negotiations with economies that are

00:36willing to actually address some of the market access and other unfair trade barriers that he

00:41has identified. So I don't think it's in the interest of every individual economy to do that.

00:48I also don't think they have the political ability to do it. There's no real institutional

00:52mechanism. And oftentimes the country's ability to negotiate or to respond in this kind of

00:59environment is dependent upon their own political environment at home. And there's just very,

01:04very different situations throughout the world. So yes, conceivable, likely, I don't think so.

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