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Trump: I'm recommending a 50% tariff on the EU
Newsflash: Donald Trump has just announced he is recommending a 50% tariff on goods from the Europen Union, from the start of next month.
Ratcheting up the trade war, Trump has claimed in a Truth Social post that the EU has been ‘very difficult’ to deal with, and that the current US trade in goods deficit is “totally unacceptable”.
Trump also claims that the EU was set up to take advantage of the US on trade.
He says:
The European Union, which was formed for the primary purpose of taking advantage of the United States on TRADE, has been very difficult to deal with.
Their powerful Trade Barriers, Vat Taxes, ridiculous Corporate Penalties, Non-Monetary Trade Barriers, Monetary Manipulations, unfair and unjustified lawsuits against Americans Companies, and more, have led to a Trade Deficit with the U.S. of more than $250,000,000 a year, a number which is totally unacceptable. Our discussions with them are going nowhere!
Therefore, I am recommending a straight 50% Tariff on the European Union, starting on June 1, 2025. There is no Tariff if the product is built or manufactured in the United States. Thank you for your attention to this matter!
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Here’s some snap reaction to Donald Trump’s threat to impose a 50% tariff on EU imports, starting with BBC economics editor Faisal Islam…
This will obviously be v bad for the world economy, incredible to think that within days China could be on 10% and the EU on 50%… but it also puts the UK in a strong position, relatively speaking… even just avoiding all this random uncertainty…. pic.twitter.com/zzEWSd8A3H
— Faisal Islam (@faisalislam) May 23, 2025….economics professor Justin Wolfers…
The single most reliable economic fact of the Trump presidency is that when he raises tariffs, markets tank. When he backs off, they rise.
This matters because markets are assessing the future profitability of American business and any tariffs benefits are downstream of boosting… pic.twitter.com/UkAKAC0MJj
… analyst Ian Bremmer…
…and hedge fund manager Benn Eifert…
True alpha: a real time Bessent-Lutnick-Navarro tracking device series so you can tell when Bessent is in Trump's office without Navarro convincing him to tweet about how he won the trade war and doesn't need 50% tariffs on the EU anymore
— Benn Eifert 🥷🏴☠️ (@bennpeifert) May 23, 2025Wall Street is set to slump when trading begins.
The Dow Jones industrial average is down 1.5% in premarket trading, with the tech-focused Nasdaq on track for a 1.9% drop,
The EU Commission has declined to comment on U.S. President Donald Trump’s recommendation to put a 50% tariff on goods from the European Union from 1 June, Reuters reports.
The Commission said it would wait until for a phone call between EU trade chief Maros Sefcovic and his U.S. counterpart Jamieson Greer to take place at 15:00 GMT.
EU COMMISSION DECLINES TO COMMENT ON U.S. TRADE TARIFFS UNTIL CALL BETWEEN EU TRADE CHIEF AND U.S. TRADE REPRESENTATIVE
— PiQ (@PiQSuite) May 23, 2025Brussels may well be surprised by Trump’s move today, as we’re only halfway through the three-month pause on all the “reciprocal” tariffs which the US president announced in early April (after his “Liberation Day” tariff announcement sent markets sliding).
That pause means EU goods currently only incur the new US ‘baseline’ tariff.
The oil price has hit a two-week low after Donald Trump threatened hefty new tariffs on imports from the European Union.
Brent crude, the international benchmark, has fallen by 1.5% to as low as $63.32 per barrel. Traders will be calculating that a US-EU trade war will hurt the global economy, leading to lower demand for energy.
Trump’s tariffs threats have created a sea of red across European stock markets:
Analyst: Trump triggers new plunge in equities
Donald Trump’s two-pronged attack on the European Union, and on Apple, has swiftly destroyed hopes that the trade war was cooling.
There’s been a period of calm in the last couple of weeks, after the US and China agreed a 90-day pause and the elimination of most of the tariffs imposed on each other during April.
The threat of 25% tariffs on iPhones made abroad, and 50% on imports from the EU into America, has brought an end to the peace.
Fawad Razaqzada, market analyst at City Index and FOREX.com, says “all the optimism over trade deals [has been] wiped out in minutes – seconds, even”, explaining:
US index futures and Apple shares tumbled in premarket as Trump warned the company of 25% tariffs if manufacturing of iPhones is not moved to the United States.
He then triggered an even bigger after recommending 50% tariffs on EU starting June 1. The German DAX dropped over 500 points and similar moves were seen in US index futures
Markets fall after Trump threatens 50% tariff on EU imports
European stock markets are sliding after Donald Trump threatened the EU with a 50% tariff on its goods from the start of June (see previous post).
Germany’s DAX has fallen by 1.9% as investors digest Trump’s announcement, while Italy’s FTSE MIB has lost 2%.
The Stoxx 600 Banks Index, which tracks bank shares in Europe, is down 1.7%.
In London, the FTSE 100 index of blue chip shares has now dropped by 101 points, or 1.1%, as trade war fears sweep the City again. Bank stocks are among the big fallers.
Trump: I'm recommending a 50% tariff on the EU
Newsflash: Donald Trump has just announced he is recommending a 50% tariff on goods from the Europen Union, from the start of next month.
Ratcheting up the trade war, Trump has claimed in a Truth Social post that the EU has been ‘very difficult’ to deal with, and that the current US trade in goods deficit is “totally unacceptable”.
Trump also claims that the EU was set up to take advantage of the US on trade.
He says:
The European Union, which was formed for the primary purpose of taking advantage of the United States on TRADE, has been very difficult to deal with.
Their powerful Trade Barriers, Vat Taxes, ridiculous Corporate Penalties, Non-Monetary Trade Barriers, Monetary Manipulations, unfair and unjustified lawsuits against Americans Companies, and more, have led to a Trade Deficit with the U.S. of more than $250,000,000 a year, a number which is totally unacceptable. Our discussions with them are going nowhere!
Therefore, I am recommending a straight 50% Tariff on the European Union, starting on June 1, 2025. There is no Tariff if the product is built or manufactured in the United States. Thank you for your attention to this matter!
Apple shares drop in pre-market
Apple shares are falling in pre-market trading after Donald Trump threatened the company with new tariffs unless it shifts iPhone production to the US.
They’re currently on track to fall by around 3% when trading begins on Wall Street, in under two hour’s time.
BREAKING: Apple stock, $AAPL, falls -4% as President Trump says iPhones must be built in the US or they will face a tariff of at least 25%. pic.twitter.com/anyxsdNxjx
— The Kobeissi Letter (@KobeissiLetter) May 23, 2025Trump threatens Apple with 25% tariffs if iPhones not made in US
Newsflash: Donald Trump has fired another shot at Apple in his trade wars, warning that the tech giant must pay a 25% tariff unless it manufactures its iPhones in the US.
Posting on his Truth Social website, Trump says:
“I have long ago informed Tim Cook of Apple that I expect their iPhone’s 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% must be paid by Apple to the U.S. Thank your for your attention to this matter!”
This is the US president’s latest attempt to force Apple to move manufacturing to the US; last week, Trump said he had a “little problem” with Apple’s Tim Cook, after reports that the company is planning to switch assembly of handsets for the US market from China to India.
Sky News: Two-way race to buy Poundland
The battle to take control of UK discount chain Poundland has taken a twist.
Sky News are reporting that Poundland’s owner, Pepco Group, has shortlisted two rival firms to buy Poundland, which needs a capital injection of more than £50m to aid a turnaround plan.
A Pepco insider said on Friday that Hilco, the former owner of HMV and Homebase, and former Laura Ashley-owner Gordon Brothers were involved in a two-way race to buy the chain.
That means that Modella Capital, the investment firm which has agreed to buy WH Smith’s high street operations, has been eliminated from the auction.
Yesterday, Pepco cut its profit guidance for Poundland, due to “highly challenging trading conditions, which have been further impacted by clearance of old stock and product availability issues”.
UK private sector productivity drops below pre-Covid levels
Worryingly, productivity in the UK private sector has dropped below its levels before the Covid-19 pandemic.
New data from the Office for National Statistics this morning shows that multi-factor productivity – a measure of how efficiently resources are used in the economy – fell by 0.6% in 2024 and was 0.7% lower than in 2019.
That, the ONS points out, is rather worse than the trend growth in MFP of around 1.8% per year in the decade before the 2008 economic downturn.
The report shows that market sector gross value added (GVA) only increased by 1.3% in 2024, while hours worked rose by 1.8%.
