EU places tariffs on US jeans, other items

The European Union announced a 25 percent tariff Friday on U.S. prod ucts ranging from motorcycles, to 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. prod ucts would go into effect immediately

In turn, Trump quickly responded to the European salvo, dashing off a tweeted warning Friday morning tha if the EU tariffs and barriers “are no soon broken down and removed” the U.S. will place a 20 percent tariff on al 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, chew ing tobacco and peanut butter, seemed aimed at putting pressure on political ly sensitive groups such as farmers.

Harley-Davidson is from Wiscon sin, the home state of Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan, while bour bon is a big product of Kentucky, home state of Republican Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell.

The list also included playing cards which will get a 10 percent tariff. Othe items are rice, sweet corn, orange juice, chewing tobacco and snuff, eye make-up, rowing boats and canoes.

The EU charges that Trump broke world trade rules June 1 by slapping 25 percent tariffs on EU steel and 10 per cent on aluminum.

European Commission chief Jean Claude Juncker said Thursday that the U.S. decision to impose tariffs “goes against all logic and history.”

EU Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom said that the EU was “lef with no other choice” but to impose tariffs of its own after the “unilatera and unjustified decision of the U.S.”