EU slaps tariffs on $3.4B in US goods
The European Union announced a 25 percent tariff Friday on U.S. products such as motorcycles, steel, bourbon and jeans in retaliation for President Donald Trump’s tariffs on imports of EU steel and aluminum.
The EU, a bloc of 28 nations, said the tariffs on $3.4 billion in U.S. products would go into effect immediately.
Trump quickly responded to the European salvo, dashing off a tweeted warning Friday morning that if the EU tariffs and barriers “are not soon broken down and removed,” the U.S. will place a 20 percent tariff on all European-built cars coming into the U.S. “Build them here!” he tweeted.
The EU’s retaliatory tariffs, which also included typical U.S. products such as orange juice, cigarettes, chewing tobacco and peanut butter, seemed aimed at putting pressure on politically sensitive groups such as farmers.
Harley-Davidson, notably, is from Wisconsin, the home state of Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan, while bourbon is a big product of Kentucky, home state of the Senate majority leader, Republican Mitch McConnell.
The EU charges that Trump broke world trade rules June 1 by slapping 25 percent tariffs on EU steel and 10 percent on aluminum.
European Commission chief JeanClaude Juncker said Thursday that the U.S. decision to impose tariffs “goes against all logic and history.”
“Our response must be clear but measured. We will do what we have to do to re-balance and safeguard,” he said.
EU Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom said this week that the EU was “left with no other choice” but to impose tariffs of its own after the “unilateral and unjustified decision of the U.S.”