European Leaders React with Anger over Trump Tariffs, Threaten ‘Retaliatory’ Measures
European leaders reacted with shock and anger over President Donald Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’ tariffs, with the French prime minister calling them a global “catastrophe” and the German economic minister comparing them to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
On Wednesday, President Trump announced reciprocal tariffs on countries that have been levying disproportionately higher import duties on U.S.-made goods. The president called April 2, the day of his announcement, the “Liberation Day” that would “forever be remembered as the day American industry was reborn.”
President Trump promised “a little tough love” for the “foreign cheaters” who, for decades, have been hurting the interests of U.S. workers and manufacturers. “Foreign leaders have stolen our jobs, foreign cheaters have ransacked our factories, and foreign scavengers have torn apart our once-beautiful American Dream,” he warned, speaking from the White House Rose Garden. “But it is not going to happen anymore.”
Reacting to President Trump’s announcement, President Emmanuel Macron reportedly wants to halt French investment to the U.S. “Macron calls for a suspension of investments in the United States,” French daily Le Monde reported. The French president described the U.S. decision as “brutal and unfounded,” according to the newspaper.
The European Union (EU), the leading culprit besides China and India, was preparing ‘countermeasures.’ President Trump announced 20% tariffs on all goods from the 27-member European bloc. The France-based Euronews TV channel reports:
The EU is “preparing for further countermeasures” to protect its interest, Ursula von der Leyen said after after Donald Trump announced a 20% levies on European goods, urging the US to “move from confrontation to negotiation”.”We are already finalising a first package of countermeasures in response to tariffs on steel. And we are now preparing for further countermeasures, to protect our interests and our businesses if negotiations fail,” the Commission president said on Thursday from Samarkand, Uzbekistan, where she will attend the first-ever EU-Central Asia summit.”We will also be watching closely what indirect effects these tariffs could have, because we cannot absorb global overcapacity nor will we accept dumping on our market,” she added.
Germany’s outgoing socialist Chancellor Olaf Scholz and his ‘green’ Economic Minister Robert Habeck, who oversaw the devastating de-industrialization of their country since 2021, were the loudest to protest. Germany’s state-run DW TV writes:
Outgoing German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has said the tariffs imposed on foreign imports by US President Donald Trump will damage the entire global economy and were based on false thinking.”The recent tariffs decision by the US president is in my view fundamentally wrong, and it is an attack on a trade system that has created prosperity all round the world, itself an American achievement,” he told a news conference held in welcome to Jordan’s King Abdullah. (…)Outgoing German Economy Minister Robert Habeck compared the impact of US President Donald Trump’s tariffs on the world economy with that of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.”I think this is an extraordinary day for the world economy, comparable to the situation after the Russian aggression against Ukraine. We knew that something new was happening and we in Europe were not prepared to deal with the challenge. And we looked into the abyss that time, but we worked it out,” the minister said.
German weekly Der Spiegel, notorious for its hysterical coverage of Trump’s presidency, quoted an Austrian economist, saying this was the “biggest tariff shock to the global economy in the last 100 years.” The Trump tariffs will have “disastrous consequences” such as “rising prices, lowering growth, and significant uncertainty,” the leading German political magazine commented.
“Donald Trump has been accused of ‘shooting himself in the foot’ by trying to hit high tariffs on many U.S. trading partners,” France’s Le Monde wrote, citing several unnamed experts.
According to the UK business weekly Economist, which suffers from an advanced case of Trump derangement syndrome, the move will go down in history as ‘Ruination Day,’ claiming that it “will cause economic havoc.” The magazine lamented that “on April 2nd, spurred on by his delusions, Donald Trump announced the biggest break in America’s trade policy in over a century—and committed the most profound, harmful and unnecessary economic error in the modern era.”
The Irish Times accused President Trump of pushing the world towards a trade war. “Countries across the world are racing to absorb the new way of doing business with the US, after Donald Trump unveiled tailored tariffs that looks set to ignite a global trade war,” the Irish newspaper claimed.
The left-wing British newspaper Guardian parroted the line, alleging that the U.S. decision “threatens to unleash a global trade war,” while admitting that the tariffs announced by President Trump were significantly lower than expected by the government in London. “Donald Trump has hit the UK with tariffs of 10%. Downing Street, which had been expecting a 20% rate to be imposed, expressed relief to have escaped the higher rate,” the UK daily wrote.
The British newspaper cited a European opinion poll, showing popular support for ‘retaliatory tariffs’ on U.S. goods. “A YouGov survey carried out in Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden and the UK found that if the US tariffs went ahead, large majorities – ranging from 79% of respondents in Denmark to 56% in Italy – favoured retaliatory levies on US imports,” the Guardian added.
[Excerpts from German and French news reports translated by the author]
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