EU countries preparing own tariffs ahead potential U.S.trade war
發佈日期: 2025-07-14 21:08
TVB News
The 27-bloc European Union is preparing to fight back against the United States with tariffs of its own if the two sides fail to reach a trade deal.
This after U.S. President Donald Trump announced plans to impose 30 percent tariffs on goods from the EU and Mexico if no negotiated settlement is reached by August 1st.
Trump has sent letters to 23 countries threatening hefty tariffs, including Canada, Brazil and Japan, after weeks of talks failed to secure comprehensive deals.
Europe is hoping for peace but preparing for war, just in case. A trade war, that is, with the United States that most say would be lose-lose for both sides but likely inevitable if a deal cannot be reached by August 1st, or if U.S. President Donald Trump backtracks, as he has done previously.
Italy's Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said the European Union has already prepared a list of tariffs worth 21 billion euros on U.S. goods should negotiations fail.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni warned that a trade war within the West would weaken all parties as they tackle singular global challenges.
Belgian Deputy Prime Minister Maxime Prevot said U.S. trade aggression against its European allies is unjustified.
Mexicans reacted with anger to Trump's threats. his homemaker in Mexico City says Trump is using tariff threats for everything. Tariffs for this, tariffs for that, she says.
This man says he thinks Trump lacks the capacity to look after his own country, and then tries to harm other countries.
Trump, meanwhile, appears oblivious to the backlash. Speaking to reporters at Joint Base Andrews, he said other countries have more to lose, adding that the U.S. has taken in tens of billions of dollars since he started imposing tariffs.
"We had some tremendous financial numbers released on Friday," he said. "As you probably heard that our country made 25 billion dollars last month, 25 billion dollars. It hasn't done that in a long time and a lot of that's done because of good management, and number one and maybe even more importantly, the tariffs that are pouring in. We have tariffs pouring in at levels that we have never seen before and they've only just started. These are countries that have been shut to us but we've been open to them. In other words they wouldn't let us do business there but they would do business in our country, not a fair deal."
