U.S. President-elect Donald Trump issued a fresh threat of a trade war to the European Union on Friday, urging it to purchase more American oil and gas or face a barrage of tariffs.
“I told the European Union that they must make up their tremendous deficit with the United States by the large scale purchase of our oil and gas,” Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social. “Otherwise, it is TARIFFS all the way!!!
It was not immediately clear which EU official Trump had “told” this to, if anyone, and a spokesperson for the European Commission did not immediately respond to POLITICO’s request for comment.
The Republican figurehead campaigned for the 2024 U.S. election on a pledge to impose tariffs of 10 to 20 percent on all imports. He has also threatened to slap a 60 percent levy on all goods coming from China.
During his first term, Trump imposed tariffs of 25 percent on steel imports and 10 percent on aluminum, sparking a trade war with the EU, which hit back with tariffs on American goods worth around $6 billion.
“Millions of jobs and billions in trade and investment on each side of the Atlantic depend on the dynamism and stability of our economic relationship,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in her message congratulating Trump on his victory in the November election, in an apparent appeal to not repeat 2018’s row.
During an EU leaders’ meeting in Budapest in the days after November’s seismic U.S. election, von der Leyen told reporters that the EU could increase purchases of American liquefied natural gas in a bid to keep Trump sweet.
“Why not replace [Russian gas] by American LNG, which is cheaper for us and brings down our energy prices? It’s something where we can get into a discussion, also [where] our trade deficit is concerned,” von der Leyen said.
But the EU’s ambassador to the U.S., Jovita Neliupšienė, last month said the bloc was also ready to retaliate if Trump follows through on his tariff threats. “If there are some new frictions for the trade, the European Union will be ready, actually, to react to that,” she said.
The EU exported $576.3 billion worth of goods — nearly 20 percent of its total exports — to the U.S. in 2023, according to U.S. Census Bureau data, making the U.S. the bloc’s second-largest trading partner.
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