Brussels was waiting for the ax to fall. European countries will be subject to customs duties, “the only way” for the United States “to be treated correctly”, said American President Donald Trump on Tuesday January 22, adding that Chinese products would be them taxed at 10% from February 1. “The EU is very bad for us. They treat us very badly. They don’t take our cars or our agricultural products. In fact they don’t take much,” criticized the American president, who added “so they are good for customs duties.
Present at the Davos Economic Forum (Switzerland) on Tuesday, the President of the European Commission (EC), Ursula von der Leyen, assured that Europe was ready to discuss with the American government, while recalling that Washington was a trading partner major. “Our first priority is to quickly begin discussions on our common interests and to be ready to negotiate,” she assured, “we will be pragmatic but we will remain firm on our principles: the defense of our interests and respect for our values.
But she also reached out to China, recalling that “Europe will continue to advocate cooperation, not only with our long-standing friends […] but also with all the countries with whom we have common interests.” “The message we send to the rest of the world is simple: we are ready to engage in dialogue with you if this can lead to reciprocal benefits,” he said. – she again underlined, ensuring that she wanted to “deepen” the relationship between Brussels and Beijing. Enough to make the American site say. Politico that “the EU is in no mood to beg for special treatment in the face of US President Donald Trump’s ‘America First’ agenda.” And if the United States closes the door to Europeans, Ursula Von der Leyen is willing to strengthen other collaborations with South America, Africa, China and even India.
“Great aggressors”
During his presidential campaign, Donald Trump had already denounced the United States’ trade deficit with the EU, comparing the bloc to “a little China”, which “benefits” from the world’s leading economic power. “We have a trade deficit with the EU of 350 billion dollars,” he insisted on Tuesday, “China is aggressive but it is not just China. Other countries are also great aggressors “. The US trade deficit in its trade with the EU amounted to $131 billion in 2023, according to data from the White House Trade Representative (USTR), and is mainly concentrated on four countries, Germany , France, Ireland and Italy.
But the causes vary: the trade deficit with Germany is mainly of an industrial nature, while that with Ireland is largely linked to the installation of the European headquarters of large American groups on the island, which benefit from it. of its very advantageous tax system to reduce their taxes, both in the rest of Europe and in the United States.
The EU “ready to defend its interests”
Before being re-elected, Donald Trump had already threatened the EU to impose customs duties on European products unless the bloc increased its purchases of American oil and gas. The European Commissioner for the Economy, Valdis Dombrovskis, assured Monday, after the inauguration of Donald Trump, that the EU was “ready to defend its economic interests, as we already did during the first Trump government when he introduced tariffs on steel and aluminum.”
The American president had in fact already imposed customs duties on steel and aluminum in order to protect American industry which he considered to be facing unfair competition from Asian and European countries. He also imposed a series of European products during his first mandate, in retaliation for the trade dispute between Washington and Brussels over their respective subsidies to their local airline manufacturer, Boeing and Airbus.