EU offers Trump removal of all industrial tariffs

https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-offers-trump-removal-of-all-tariffs/

24 comments

  1. Good. It’s an exit ramp for Trump. He will never admit to being wrong, but this is a way for him to claim a win.

  2. You mean like the free trade agreement between the U.S., Canada and Mexico? The agreement where the tariff rate on steel, aluminum and autos is set at zero but the U.S. recently slapped on tariffs of 25%?

  3. One day Trump is talking about how tariffs are designed to get other countries to remove their trade barriers and the next day he is saying that the tariffs are designed to create domestic manufacturing. Trouble is that Europe is a major source of factory automation technology so tariffs on those companies will increase costs to American factories.

  4. Yes, by all means, let’s coddle the most ego-maniacal turbo jackass politician since Hitler just to appease him instead of actually teaching him and the US a lesson.

  5. >The U.S. and EU came close to scrapping industrial tariffs a decade ago in their discussions of the TTIP — the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership — ***that was ultimately scuppered by Trump in his first term.***

    This is comedy gold

  6. It is a big mistake to reward bullying behaviour with a reward. Now the demands will escalate.

  8. “you can have the same deal we’ve been offering for years but if you want to claim that as a win be my guest”

  9. Not one country has even said thank you for these tariffs once.

  10. Why would they even bother negotiating with him? It just validates his behavior, if China can stand up to him, surely EU can, if they both did he’d stop.

  11. If I read this correctly, the EU is basically offering the same thing they had almost had a deal on several years ago, before Trump scuttled that deal. So the EU is now saying: “If you quit this tariff nonsense, then in return you’re going to *give* us what *we* want”.

    And Trump is going to go home claiming a victory…

    From a traditional perspective of international trade, this seems a smart move to me: get a deal with the US while they’re isolated and weak, and desperately need some kind of win. Unfortunately, this is based on the notion that the US administration is rational, and actually cares about the US economy. That’s not a very safe assumption…

  12. Is this the EU giving Trump the opportunity to confirm his bad nature?

  15. He doesn’t care about tariffs, that is just the smoke screen. He wants direct favors that benefit him only. Special deals where the money goes to his organization and not to the US.

  16. I know this is a deal that the EU tried to make years ago and that would benefit everyone, but I genuinely hope countries don’t fall for Trump’s tariffs threat. He’s already shown that he can’t be trusted to follow deals that he signed. He signed a deal with Canada and Mexico during his first term and is still implementing tariffs on them. If countries start making deals, then he’ll know that threats work and will do it again in a couple years

  17. ITT : no one read the article. No one is kowtowing to Dump. Removals of tariffs is conditioned on it being fully reciprocal and only on industrial goods like cars. Free trade with the EU like this is generally a positive thing and would likely result in increased GDP growth for US and EU. They put it on the table before and Dump scoffed. It’s a rational good faith move by the EU designed to expose Dump’s expressed motives as false and tactics as asinine if not accepted by the US.

    Once Dump rejects them again, it’s incumbent on him to counter. And he won’t. Which is bad faith and as soon as EU establishes bad faith on his part they can properly break off any and all discussions and then impose reciprocal sanctions without being seen as brash or irresponsible to the rest of the world. This is how diplomacy works.

  18. >EU offers Trump removal

    If only the headline stopped there.

  19. So now the nasty tariffs are off the table. Smart move from the EU. Trump is now in a dilemma. Does he sell this as his victory or does he not accept the offer and expose himself as a liar?

  20. This would be fantastic, but free trade isn’t what Trump wants. He’s hung up on eliminating trade deficits, which are a byproduct of the strength of the US consumer market. He thinks they’re a weakness because his brain is small and addled. If someone can kick Trump out to the golf course, declare victory and accept zero-for-zero, this nosedive turns around overnight. But I’m not holding my breath and neither is Wall Street.

  21. So Trump will take a deal that was always on the table, reverse a policy that was added a couple of days ago, and then a few oligarchs who bought the bottom will make 10-20% profits in the stock market in a week? Color me surprised.

    Prediction: Trump will strike “deals” with almost everyone which is framed as a win, but is a reversal. And the market will applaud him for just walking back some insanity. And the Cult will think he’s a master negotiator. Jfc.

  22. MAGA will call this a win thinking Trump’s strategy worked when in reality the EU would have been in talks for this anyway. Plus they won’t trust him so the deal will need way more complicated guarantees.

  23. The EU was close to this deal a decade ago, but I don’t think it’ll be accepted by the Trump administration because they aren’t actually interested in EU Tariffs, they’re interested in EU regulations and the trade defecit.

    There’s a 0% chance the EU re-arrange their regulations to allow banned US food products into the EU, and certainly there’d be backlash if they stopped looking into tech giants. So I can’t see this ending with capitulation.

    Instead this seems like it’s going to be the trade war equivelent of Trump’s ceasefire negotiation. Where he just repeatedly yells what he wants and when it doesn’t happen things get worse.

    Welcome to the Trump Depression.

  24. i would go for a fucking embargo of U.S compleetly with agreement of other countries to follow suit

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