EU hits back at Trump after tariffs threat sparks fears of fresh trade war
23 May 2025, 23:42 | Updated: 24 May 2025, 09:42
The EU has hit back at Donald Trump after the US president threatened to slap 50% tariffs on all EU goods.
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The EU’s trade commissioner Maros Sefcovic said the bloc will secure a trade deal with the US in “good faith” guided by “mutual respect, not threats”.
After a call with US trade representative Jamieson Greer and commerce secretary Howard Lutnick, Mr Sefcovic said on Friday night the 27-member union was “fully engaged, committed to securing a deal that works for both”
“EU-US trade is unmatched & must be guided by mutual respect, not threats,” he wrote in a post on X.
“We stand ready to defend our interests.”
It comes after Trump took to Truth Social to accuse the trading bloc of failing to make progress on a deal and threatened to issue fresh 50% tariffs on all goods from the EU.
The President said: “Our discussions are going nowhere.”
He added: “I am recommending a straight 50 per cent tariff on the European Union, starting on June 1.
“There is no tariff if the product is built or manufactured in the United States.”
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Trump also set his sights on Apple, threatening to slap the company with 25% tariffs on all products not built in the United States.
He said: “I have long ago informed Tim Cook [chief executive] of Apple that I expect their iPhones that will be sold in the United States of America will be manufactured and built in the United States, not India, or anyplace else.”
Trump’s latest outburst sparked fears of a fresh tariff war by the White House, causing global stock markets to fall sharply.
By close of play in Europe, the pan-European Stoxx 600 index had fallen by nearly 1%, while the FTSE 100, Germany’s Dax and the CAC 40 in Paris were all down.
In the US, Wall Street opened in the red while the S&P 500 is currently down 0.7%.
Apple was hit hard by Trump’s announcement, with shares in the tech giant falling 2.6% as of Friday evening.
When asked if there was anything the EU could do to prevent tariffs, Trump said: “We’re going to see what happens, but right now, it’s going in on June 1, and that’s the way it is … It’s time that we play the game the way I know how to play the game.
“They don’t take our cars, they don’t take our agriculture, they don’t take anything. But we take their cars by the millions and therefore they get the jobs, they get the money and we get closed plants. It’s not going to happen that way.”
Apple now joins Amazon, Walmart and other major companies as being in the White House's crosshairs as they try to respond to the uncertainty and inflationary pressures unleashed by the import taxes being imposed by Trump.
In response to Trump's tariffs on China, Apple, led by chief executive Tim Cook, was looking to shift iPhone manufacturing to India as it adjusts supply chains.
That plan has become a festering source of frustration for the US leader, who also brought it up last week during his Middle East trip.