The US President Donald Trump has proposed imposing a 50% tariff on goods from the EU from June 1 this year.
He wrote about this on his own social network TruthSocial.
According to him, negotiations with the bloc have reached an impasse because the EU has proven to be a difficult party in this process. Trump proposes not to charge duties if the goods were manufactured or assembled in the United States.
"Their powerful trade barriers, value-added tax, absurd penalties for corporations, non-tariff barriers, currency manipulation, unfair and baseless lawsuits against American companies, and more have led to an annual trade deficit with the United States of over $250 billion, which is completely unacceptable," Trump wrote.
Trumpʼs tariffs
In early April 2025, the US President Donald Trump reported that he would impose tariffs on goods from other countries. The new tariffs affected more than 180 countries and territories (not including Russia, North Korea, Cuba, and Belarus, which are already under sanctions). A 10% tariff was imposed on Ukraine.
On April 9, Trump postponed tariffs on all but China, which received the highest tariffs of 145%, while most countries are subject to a base rate of 10%. Then, on April 10, the EU mirrored the imposition of tariffs in response to the US tariffs by 90 days, before which the new tariffs were due to take effect on April 15.
“We want to give negotiations a chance. If the negotiations are not satisfactory, we will apply our countermeasures. Preparatory work on further countermeasures is ongoing. As I said before, all options remain on the table,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen wrote at the time.
And in mid-April, Trump threatened to impose 245% tariffs on Chinese goods. In response, China raised tariffs on all American goods from 84% to 125%. The US and Chinese authorities announced that they would reduce mutual tariffs for 90 days starting on May 14. More about this here.
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