US President Donald Trump rekindled his trade dispute with the EU on Friday by threatening 50 percent tariffs, as Brussels reacted with a call for “respect.”
Trump also unleashed a broadside against smartphone makers, including US tech giant Apple, threatening them with new duties of 25 percent if they do not move production to the US.
Stock markets fell as Trump’s comments fueled fears of global economic disruption, after a relative lull in recent days after Trump reached deals with China and the UK.
Photo: Bloomberg
Trump first raised the issue of EU tariffs in an early morning post on his Truth Social network.
“Our discussions with them are going nowhere!” he wrote. “Therefore, I am recommending a straight 50 percent Tariff on the European Union, starting on June 1, 2025.”
He doubled down later in the day, telling reporters in the Oval Office that there was nothing the 27-nation bloc could do to change his mind.
“I’m not looking for a deal. I mean, we’ve set the deal. It’s at 50 percent,” Trump said. “They haven’t treated our country properly. They banded together to take advantage of us.”
Trump’s new tariffs would, if imposed, dramatically raise Washington’s current baseline levy of 10 percent and fuel simmering tensions between the world’s biggest economy and its largest trading bloc.
The EU’s trade chief said the bloc would work for a trade deal with Washington based on “respect,” not “threats.”
“The EU’s fully engaged, committed to securing a deal that works for both,” EU Commissioner for Trade and Economic Security Maros Sefcovic wrote on X after a previously planned call with US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer and US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick.
In a separate message on Friday that also unnerved markets, Trump blasted Apple chief executive officer Tim Cook for failing to move iPhone production to the US despite repeated requests.
Trump said he had “long ago informed Tim Cook of Apple that I expect their iPhones that will be sold in the United States of America will be manufactured and built in the United States, not India, or anyplace else.”
“If that is not the case, a Tariff of at least 25 pecent must be paid by Apple to the US,” he added.
Trump later stepped up his threats, saying he would tariff all smartphones not made in the country.
“It would be also Samsung and anybody that makes that product, otherwise it wouldn’t be fair,” Trump told reporters, adding that the new tariffs would come into effect from the end of next month.
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