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CGTN Europe
  • 23/05/2025
The European Union has not yet commented on Donald Trump's new 50% tariff threat.

The bloc's trade chief, Maros Sefcovic, has been speaking on the phone to his U.S. counterpart Jamieson Greer.

CGTN’s correspondent Will Denselow has more details.

#Trump #Tariff #Europe #EU

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00:00The European Union has not yet commented on Donald Trump's new 50% tariff threat.
00:06The bloc's trade chief, Maros Sefcovic, has been speaking on the phone to his US counterpart, Jameson Greer.
00:12Let's talk to our correspondent, Will Denslow, in Brussels now.
00:16So, Will, Trump is pretty upset about slow trade talks.
00:19No comment yet from the European Union. Where is this heading?
00:22Well, this all comes at a time where there'd been some optimism that negotiations could yield positive results
00:34and a de-escalation in these trade tensions, considering the fact that last week when trade representatives
00:42from across the EU gathered here in Brussels, they said that considering the UK had hammered out
00:48in a trade agreement with the US, considering there'd been some concessions made between the US and China
00:54when it came to their tit-for-tat tariffs, there was certainly hope that the EU would be next door.
01:02Certainly, a trade agreement could be in the works.
01:06We heard from Maros Sefcovic last week, who said that they were working on the groundwork
01:11towards a fair, balanced and lasting outcome.
01:14However, of course, as you rightly mentioned, we've had this bombastic message from President Trump
01:20again stating that he believes that the EU was essentially designed to hurt the United States.
01:27He said that the EU has not been negotiating in good faith.
01:31That has been a point that's been amplified by Scott Besant, the US Treasury Secretary, as well.
01:40This also comes in a week where the EU reportedly had been tabling a new package to try and appease Washington.
01:49This would include more purchase of things like US energy, as well as to work more closely on issues
01:56such as Technology 5 and 6G technology.
02:00However, of course, it seems that these efforts will be rebutted by Washington.
02:06Now, the big question, what comes next?
02:09The EU had been operating under the impression that they had until July to prevent tariffs from moving from 10% to 20%.
02:17Now, it seems that they just have a little over a week to prepare for the possibility of tariffs coming into place
02:23at the beginning of June to the tune of 50%.
02:27The EU was also preparing a potential countermeasure should an agreement not be reached.
02:33That would be over $100 billion worth of counter tariffs, countermeasures by the EU.
02:39So it would be very interesting to see whether the EU has to move up those countermeasure timetables
02:44based on the President's latest remarks on social media.

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