similar comments from Elon Musk<\/a> \u2014 and said the current trade tensions could seriously hurt European industries. Arnault said European leaders should negotiate \u201ccleverly\u201d with the Trump administration and take a more prominent role in discussions.<\/p>\n\u201cEuropean countries should try to manage these negotiations and not leave them to bureaucrats,\u201d he said. The European Commission, the EU\u2019s executive branch, negotiates trade deals on behalf of all 27 member states.<\/p>\n
While President Donald Trump paused his heavy reciprocal tariffs on countries for 90 days, his 10% universal tariff still stands, and there\u2019s swirling uncertainty about what kind of levies are to come moving forward. Other U.S. tariffs could include a 20% charge on European fashion and leather goods and a 31% duty on Swiss-produced watches.<\/p>\n
Arnault repeated comments that he would consider moving more production to the U.S. to lessen the impact of the U.S. tariffs. At the moment, around 25% of the group\u2019s annual sales come from the country.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve already heard of several companies who are thinking about shifting more production to the United States, but you couldn\u2019t say this is the fault of the companies,\u201d he said, blaming the European Commission.<\/p>\n
Experts, however, have said that shifting production locations would do little to mitigate tariff risks.<\/p>\n
In 2019, LVMH opened a facility in Alvarado, Texas during Trump\u2019s first term, and the two toured the plant together, calling it a symbol of U.S. manufacturing revival. But production problems have made the site among the worst-performing for Louis Vuitton across the globe. Arnault admitted Thursday that the location has underperformed.<\/p>\n
Arnault attended Trump\u2019s inauguration and said in January that a \u201cwind of optimism\u201d was blowing through the U.S. as a result of his election. The Frenchman has also praised Trump for boosting economic growth and entrepreneurship.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s been a rough week for LVMH, which has long been the world\u2019s dominant luxury group, with brands including Louis Vuitton, Dior, Fendi, Hennessy, Mo\u00ebt & Chandon, and Givenchy under its umbrella.<\/p>\n
Earlier this week, H\u00e8rmes briefly overtook LVMH as France\u2019s most valuable company after LVMH shares fell 7.8% due to an unexpected drop in first-quarter sales. Investor concerns over the U.S. tariffs have dragged company shares down more than 35% and have reduced the group\u2019s market capitalization by almost $115 billion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bernard Arnault, the chairman and CEO of French luxury conglomerate LVMH, says to blame Brussels \u2014 the location…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":32416,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5174],"tags":[19126,17111,51,19127,19128,16766,32,2000,299,5187,1699,19122,474,19123,19124,19125,4025,13279,8177,3075],"class_list":{"0":"post-32415","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-8th-arrondissement-of-paris","9":"tag-bernard-arnault","10":"tag-business","11":"tag-cac-40","12":"tag-customs-duties","13":"tag-dior","14":"tag-donald-trump","15":"tag-eu","16":"tag-europe","17":"tag-european","18":"tag-european-union","19":"tag-fendi","20":"tag-finance","21":"tag-givenchy","22":"tag-haute-couture","23":"tag-hennessy","24":"tag-louis-vuitton","25":"tag-lvmh","26":"tag-quartz","27":"tag-tariff"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114363590528541133","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32415","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32415"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32415\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}