Trump adds Europe to the list of US trade partners he’s threatening with tariffs

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — President-elect Donald Trump on Friday added the 27 countries that make up the European Union to the list of trade partners he’s threatening with tariffs — unless the group takes steps to import more U.S. goods. EU Commission spokesman Olof Gill said in reaction to Trump’s post that “we are ready to discuss with President-elect Trump how we can further strengthen an already strong relationship, including by discussing our common interests in the energy sector.” Gill noted that the EU is already “committed to phasing out energy imports from Russia and diversifying our sources of supply. We’re not going to go into any details about what that might entail in the future, given that the new administration isn’t even in place yet.” Scott Lincicome, a vice president at the libertarian Cato Institute, said it was difficult to parse what Trump was trying to say relative to European trade, given that natural gas exports to the continent are already up after Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. “This is for better or worse a lot of what we’re going to see for the next four years.” While there is a $209 billion trade imbalance, a more complicated relationship lies beneath those numbers.