European Leaders React with Anger over Trump Tariffs, Threaten ‘Retaliatory’ Measures
German Economic Minister Habeck: Trump tariffs “comparable to the situation after the Russian aggression against Ukraine.”
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.”
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 2, 2025
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]
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
Where did I put my Tears Cup?
Tariffs and trade obstacles for me, but not for thee.
I have a way to put the German minister in his place: revise the tax code that gives such great deductions on leased vehicles. Tighten up the rules about what can be leased and what not. I can see for example. write-offs for a truck fitted with a drilling right, towing equipment, or a pickup or van used as a true work truck. But, an S class Merc or an A8 Audi? No. The tax write-offs for those are so that attorney Joe Scheisster or Executive Outreach Director Quonisha Quotahire can have luxury and write it off. That has to stop.
Meant to finish off with given how many German cars are on lease as opposed to bought, the good German minister would see a lot of his exports to the US dry up.
The least expensive Porsche 911 in 2025 is $130,000. As with the Mercedes, Audi and Lexus… tax deductions should reflex the “need” for such autos. The pressure from within the US will be initially directed against Trump rather than the dealerships calling up the manufacturers and tell them to snap to. High end autos and Blue cities go together. We shall see where the money is.
Let’s differentiate between models manufactured in the USA and those manufactured elsewhere and imported. Mercedes has several models being manufactured in Alabama by US workers.
That says, maybe, chief, but I resent people writing off luxury automobiles on the income tax. I just have a work a day SUV, and I can’t write mine off. I don’t care where the damn thing is made. If it’s a work truck or some sort of a work vehicle yes. Depreciate it. But I don’t think that it executive needs a $200,000 Mercedes SUV to take his children to ballet lessons or soccer practice. Not on my dime at least. By my dome, I’m in the taxes. The rest of us have to pay to make up for it.
Add to that pleasure crafts and anything after the first home. Oh and private planes if they can be written off.
Heck lets get rid of every itemized deduction on the income tax; standard deduction only. Set it at a flat 10% for all W2 income, capital gains, passive income and inheritance above $3 million (ends the estate tax). Move SSA on budget so scrap it and Medicare taxes, Obama care as well. Put corporate tax at 10% as well but ending deductions for compensation of workers beyond base salary as well as deduction for non core items like salaries, operating expenses like office lease purchase of CPU and physical plant.
Add that to a 10% no exemption retail VAT on ALL goods and services and the new 10% universal tariff regime. Should be plenty of revenue for the Federal govt after it gets streamlined by DOGE. Plus it greatly simplifies our tax regime, ends the favoring of certain industries/activities.
Trump’s retaliatory tariff is worse than the Khitomer Massacre when the Romulans attacked the Klingon colony!!!
But are they worse than Wolf 359?
Sorry, the downvote was accidental. Count it as an upvote!
Just remember this lesson: neither the Romulans nor the Klingons — warriors — ever conquered earth. It took the Vogons — bureaucrats.
The EU is a high-tariff protectionist racket, they sure don’t like being called on it.
If their tariffs are higher than ours already what will they do?
If this ties our tariff to theirs how will raising their tariffs lower ours?
Maybe we should have a tariff +10% for any tariff over zero?
Leave nato while we’re at it. Let them fund their own defense against the russian horde.
The EU/NATO overlap of Nations need to rethink their stance. If they decide to raise tariffs above the current levels then the reciprocal nature of the Trump Tariffs puts them on an escalator to higher tariff on their own exports.
Key allies don’t impose exploitive, protectionist trade policies onto their friends….which is what these Nations have done for decades while US taxpayers under wrote the bulk of their defense costs.
If these Nations wish to remain as military allies of the USA then they need to become economic allies as well. The post WWII era of the USA being the consumer dumping ground to buy other Nations products while our own manufacturing base, industrial capacity and the high wage employment that comes with those being eroded is just about over. Past time for it. Our own National.Security depends upon a secure supply chain and that rests upon domestic US production.
In college, I went and saw a talk by the EU ambassador, David Bruton. He said the entire point of the EU was to defeat the US and that since there were about 500 million Europeans and 300 million Americans, they would win. This was 20ish years ago. They weren’t our allies then and they aren’t now.
It warms my heart to see these globalist assholes so exercised
Look at a meeting with any EU council. They need the exercise.
These tariffs are a risky gamble with the world’s economies. If you think that this is a riskless power move by Trump, you’ve got it wrong. These tariffs aren’t simply based on tariffs imposed by other countries on the US. In some cases there are no tariffs on US goods. These are tariffs based on Trump’s perception of “trade obstacles.” That includes sales tax or, in much of yhe world VAT. Countries don’t apply these taxes in a discriminatory way. It’s simply how governments raise money. And few if any countries can turn on a dime and lower these taxes. Budgets would be out of whack. (And the same would be true for most states in the US.)
These tariffs have caught the world by surprise. The US stock market is telling you what it thinks. If these tariffs last, there will be less trade, more inflation, and ultimately a very serious recession. Lost jobs. Lost industry. Lost investments. Lost pensions. A declining economy.
Surrender is so much easier. Uncle $ugar will need to bend a knee to the world. Please note that the US tariffs now imposed are above 50% of the tariffs placed on US goods. How dare nations that tax and tax for socialist welfarism have to deal with it. By the way, Uncle $ugar’s telephone has been disconnected.
10 up-votes but your facts are wrong. In many cases, it is not a tariffs for tariffs situation. In any case, it’s Russian Roulette with the world economy. GLTA
You left out other protectionist policies undertaken by these Nations to prop up their own economies at the expense of US workers such as direct subsidies, indirect subsidies like govt provided national healthcare. For decades this has been the case and these Nations purposefully lowered their Defense spending to shift funding to these protectionist programs all the while expecting the USA to provide the umbrella of security on their behalf.
Trump explicitly ran on these policies from day one of his campaign. They ain’t a surprise, he talked about this during Biden Admin. These Nations have more than a YEAR of Trump talking about a new, stricter US tariff regime as part of his campaign. They’ve had over EIGHT months since Trump became nominee and FIVE months since the election to prepare.
The shift away from the post WWII era of the USA willing to absorb the economic costs of one-sided protectionist policies to harm our economy and our workforce is beginning in earnest. I feel confident those Nations who claim to be our Friends and Allies Militarily will wish to be our Economic Friends and Allies as well. If they choose otherwise and seek to retain the protectionist policies of the past that injure our Citizens economic well being that’s their choice and they own the consequences.
Not all countries did these things and, in any case, the US did them, too.
He didn’t use a scalpel. Didn’t ise a rifle. He used a sawed off shotgun.The world’s economy is at stake. The United States is in the world.
Do those clowns understand the meaning of the word, “reciprocal tariffs”?
Too many syllables so no.
Not to worry, According to these same globalists the world is going to end in 5 years because of man made climate change.
So it’s ok for other countries to protect their industries but not us? The French won’t let any CA wine into France without a huge tax because it would put their wine industry out of business. Germany is the worst because it does not allow almost anything made here into Germany without a tax. If it wasn’t for the US, their car industry would collapse. Canada is nothing but a leach on the US because they benefit from so many things that aren’t trade-related. They are the worst NATO member in making their military up to standards all the other nations are required to meet because of depending on our military. Their economy would collapse if we shut off all trade with them and they know it. Trump is saying let’s be fair on both sides and there i s no better argument than that.
Which Nations in Europe didn’t reduce defense spending in the post cold war era below 3% GDP and redirect funds to direct and indirect subsidies to make their domestic companies more competitive with the USA? How about Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan?
Now you’ve swapped from ‘it’s a.surprise’ to everyone does it including the USA. Ok so if everyone does it and the US is imposing reciprocal tariffs along with a baseline 10% tariff to counter direct/indirect subsidies then why the outrage?
Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
“These Nations have more than a YEAR of Trump talking about a new, stricter US tariff regime as part of his campaign. They’ve had over EIGHT months since Trump became nominee and FIVE months since the election to prepare.”
Why should you expect them to be any more on the ball than those US states who still aren’t ready to roll out Real ID after seventeen years of warning?
Oh I don’t expect them to have internalized the very clear advance warning that this was coming but I do demand they and their surrogates admit they did have plenty of warning. Whether they chose to use the time wisely in making reforms is totes up to them…..as are the consequences.
If they were “caught by surprise,” as you put it, they just weren’t paying attention. Trump campaigned on this. We the people voted for it.
America has budgets out of balance and deficits because these countries are no fair traders. If their VAT does not generate enough revenue under fair trad conditions, they can raise it. Or maybe they should create their own DOGE and start slashing like we are doing. Either way, they comply or screw them.
It’s based on several factors which can include tariffs, additional taxes and trade imbalances. However, you must keep in mind that the United States is one of the least reliant nations in the world when it comes to foreign trade, imports only make up about 15% of our GDP and over half of that is with Mexico and Canada who have different agreements than the rest of the world. If a country really wants to be locked out of the largest consumer economy in the world, it’s their choice, but most will make a deal because they can’t afford that. It’s high time we stopped being taken advantage of by our so-called “friends”, the rationale for that died with the Soviet Union.
Boo hoo, EU.
FU EU
These European imbeciles have known that this was coming since before the election. Had they cared about their citizens, they would have prepared proposals and presented them to Trump as soon as he was sworn in to office. They were either too narcissistic or lacking in intelligence to act prudently. There is still time for them to make proposals but I haven’t seen any evidence that they’ve even considered what to offer. They expected that they could continue feeding at our trough. The expected wrong. It will now cost them even more.
Out of curiosity. If the US won’t trade with the EU and the EU won’t trade with Russia, where will the EU sell its goods?
Africa? South America? China? Japan? How’s that going to work out for them?
to paraphrase,…”They don’t have the cards”
Hell, they don’t have a card table.
No, but Trump has the RINOs in the Senate! If ever we needed to stick together just one f–ing time it is now! But no, four a$$holes had to vote with the lying, cheating, America hating, Democrats against his tariffs.
The rest of the western world is in a culdesac of their own making and the only way out is major reforms of their protectionist economic policies. They’ve benefited from our benevolence in putting up with an uneven playing field for so long they believe they are entitled to keep it. That’s why they and their globalist, faux free trade surrogates are so pissy. Their argument seems to be ‘US tariff bad/evil/end of world… but other Nation’s tariffs and other protectionist policies like import restrictions on amount of goods, direct/indirect subsidies to business are just fine.
That’s basically how I was interpreting it, but I honestly don’t pay enough attention to trade issues to be sure. I appreciate the confirmation.
This is great fun to watch )
if the euros stop investment in the usa
then we should see a huge drop in plo students !!
I am from a poor white family born in the late 50s. I was born last by 6 years in SoCal. By the time I made it to school we were lower middle class.
I have seen many Industries leave as their business goes over to foreign countries to operate. This happens for various types including furniture, clothing, autos, electronics, computers, meds, ship building, and other parts and things.
COVID showed that with the USA shut down we were dependent on China for most of everything, but they had sent the COVID virus. I understand Trump’s tariff plan as it makes sense since all countries are charging the USA tariffs and he still is not charging full tariffs.
So the EU’s negotiation style is to open with a hissy fit? Love it. They can suck on their croissants and suffer.
If you asked the redhat Boogerpick crowd. -‘what does THE MORON mean by reciprocal tariffs?” – I would guess well over 95% would answer-” We charge them what they charge us?”
But hey . I tolllllllllllllld ya.
Yes, that’s what reciprocal tariffs mean.
Other factors which affect trade are also being considered. For instance, Japan has low tariffs for the most part, but it is ridiculously hard to export goods to there for other non-tariff reasons.
“European Leaders React with Anger over Trump Tariffs, Threaten ‘Retaliatory’ Measures”
Like what? Raise their tariffs even higher?