Trump tweets trade tariff threats at EU auto industry

US President Donald Trump on Saturday threatened a tax on cars from the European Union if it enacts retaliatory measures in response to his announced plans for tariffs on imported steel and aluminum.

“If the EU wants to further increase their already massive tariffs and barriers on US companies doing business there, we will simply apply a Tax on their Cars which freely pour into the US,” Trump tweeted.

“They make it impossible for our cars (and more) to sell there,” he added, slamming what he called a “big trade imbalance.”

Earlier, he had blamed the US’s “very stupid” trade deals for, according to him, an $800 billion annual trade deficit.

On Friday, European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker said the EU was drawing up measures against leading US brands such as Levi’s and Harley-Davidson, after Trump sparked global uproar by announcing plans for tariffs on steel and aluminum, then describing trade wars as “good, and easy to win.”

“We will not sit idly when European industry and jobs are threatened,” Juncker said on the sidelines of a conference in Hamburg, Germany.

The EU response matches similar moves during a 2003 “steel war” unleashed by George W. Bush’s administration – which prompted the US to back down before the EU carried out its threat.

An advocate of “Made in America,” Trump has been a critic of his predecessors’ trade agreements, which he says have taken jobs away from the US. He has been particularly vocal against the North American Free Trade Agreement.