Trump intensifies trade war with 30% tariffs on EU
Reuters
US president Donald Trump on Saturday imposed a 30 per cent tariff on imports from the European Union and Mexico starting on August 1st after weeks of negotiations with the key trading allies failed to reach a more comprehensive trade deal.
The fresh tariffs were announced in separate letters posted on Truth Social on Saturday.
Earlier this week, Trump issued new tariff announcements for a number of countries, including Japan, South Korea, Canada and Brazil, as well as a 50 per cent tariff on copper.
The EU had hoped to reach a comprehensive trade agreement with the US for the 27-country bloc.
The bloc had been bracing for the letter from Trump outlining his planned duties on the United States' largest trade and investment partner after a broadening of his tariff war in recent days.
The EU initially hoped to strike a comprehensive trade agreement, including zero-for-zero tariffs on industrial goods, but months of difficult talks have led to the realisation it will probably have to settle for an interim agreement and hope something better can still be negotiated.
The 27-country bloc is under conflicting pressures as powerhouse Germany urged a quick deal to safeguard its industry, while other EU members, such as France, have said EU negotiators should not cave into a one-sided deal on US terms.
Earlier this week, Taoiseach Micheál Martin said he was "hopeful" that the US and the EU could agree an outline agreement or framework principle agreement this week.
"There’s still a number of issues to negotiated, nothing has been rejected, definitively," he said.
"But what it does illustrate, though, that even if a framework agreement is arrived at, there would be a lot of negotiations subsequently.
"So therefore, whilst it would create some degree of clarity in terms of where we are in the short term, there would still be a number of issues outstanding in respect of that trade issue between the European Union and the United States and indeed between other countries."
Tánaiste Simon Harris said on Monday that a scenario of 50 per cent tariffs would be "extraordinarily damaging to the EU-US trade relationship".
Trump's cascade of tariff orders since returning to the White House has begun generating tens of billions of dollars a month in new revenue for the US government. US customs duties revenue shot past $100 billion in the federal fiscal year through to June, according to US Treasury data on Friday.
