U.S. President Donald Trump said Monday that the European Union is worse than China, hours after Washington and Beijing agreed to slash respective punitive tariffs and de-escalate their trade war.
“European Union is in many ways nastier than China, okay?” Trump said, as he lashed the bloc. “Oh, they’ll come down a lot. You watch. We have all the cards. They treat us very unfairly.”
Despite several attempts at negotiating with Washington to remove Trump’s tariffs on European goods, the EU has yet to achieve a breakthrough.
Trump’s comments mark a significant departure from his warm words about the European Commission’s president last week, in which he praised Ursula von der Leyen as “fantastic,” adding he hoped that the two would meet soon.
Although Trump has already met with a host of European leaders, von der Leyen has yet to nail down her own meeting — saying last week she’d only meet the U.S. president if there’s a “concrete” trade package that can be negotiated.
Brussels last week dangled a list of potential concessions — including regulatory easing and joint efforts to curb Chinese overproduction — and threatened tariffs on €95 billion worth of U.S. goods if talks stall. Trump’s trade hawk Peter Navarro condemned the mooted counteroffensive as provocative.
Trump’s heated new remarks come as Washington and Beijing agreed to slash so-called reciprocal tariffs against each other, after talks between U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer and Chinese officials in Switzerland.
The U.S. will cut Trump’s recent tariffs on Chinese imports from 145 percent to 30 percent, while the Chinese side will drop measures from 125 percent to 10 percent. The suspension is temporary for now, lasting 90 days, allowing time for further negotiations.
Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs on countries around the world and the EU triggered shockwaves in financial markets and threatened to upend global trade entirely.
As he seeks to repair perceived injustices in the way Europe has treated the U.S., Trump imposed a 10 percent baseline tariff, as well as a 25 percent levy on cars and metals, with more tariffs underway, to try bring home manufacturing jobs home that were lost to globalization.
Trump made the incendiary comments about the EU in the context of a new drug-pricing scheme he announced Monday, intended to force companies to sell drugs in the U.S. at the lowest price they offer abroad.
Doug Palmer contributed to this report.
This story has been updated.
The post Trump: The EU is ‘nastier than China’ appeared first on Politico.
