President Trump Announces 50% Tariff Rate on EU Products Effective June 1st
May 23, 2025 | Sundance1/2
Those who followed the first-term trade negotiations will likelyremember the challenges of dealing with the European Union and their entrenched dependency on retaining the Marshall Plan system; a one-way tariff process that enabled Europe to rebuild after World War II.
Unfortunately, as with all long-term financial subsidies, the beneficiary becomes dependent and retaining benefit is their only objective.
Former Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross spent the majority of his time focused ontrying to negotiate with the EU to remove these ridiculous trade benefits that have long exhausted their usefulness. Enough is enough.
Term-two Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has the same regional assignment formerly held by Wilbur Ross, with U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer in full support.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has ASEAN nations as his primary regional focus,Lutnick’s primary region is the EU and President Trump is personally attentive to China and the USMCA. USTR Greer then goes to the primary with the closest deal under consideration and organizes the paper construct, the technical aspects. It’s an overall similar arrangement to term-1 only with a much bigger scope.
As would be expected from historic reference points in trying to break this insufferable one-way Marshall Plan system, the EU is once again operating in bad faith and will not give up their status. When PresidentTrump says the entire reason for the EU to form was to ensure their retention of this Marshall Plan benefit, he’s not wrong. That’s the brutally honest background.
President Trump has announced today that a 50% tariff rate will be applied toward all EU imports until such a time as they come to the negotiation process willing to let go of their economic model dependent on the one-way benefit.There really is no other way to break the Gordian trade knot, other than to cut it – forcefully.
President Trump (via Truth Social) – “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!”….
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2025/05/23/president-trump-announces-50-tariff-rate-on-eu-products-effective-june-1st/