President Donald Trump threatened a sharp increase in prices on the European Union and Mexico on Saturday, two of the largest American business partners.
In separate letters published on his social media platform, Truth Social, Trump wrote that each country will face a covered rate of 30% on all goods exported to the United States from August 1.
Trump threatened even higher prices if the EU or Mexico retaliated against his new sample.
Writing to the president of Mexico, Trump also focused on border security, saying that “Mexico helped me get the border, but what Mexico has done is not enough”.
“Mexico has still not stopped the cartels trying to transform all of North America into a troco-transficking playground,” he added.
Trump spent last week bringing his trade war last week to a roaring boil. He launched it by issuing dozens of letters announcing unilateral prices, then said that it was planning to impose 50% of tasks on copper goods, sending raw metal prices to peaks of all time. Late Thursday, he announced that he would apply a covered rate of up to 20% on all imports, as well as a 35% rate to some, and perhaps everyone, Canadian imports from next month.
The letters intervene while the numerous trade agreements which, according to officials of the Trump administration, would not have been signed, which did not materialize, leaving Trump with little to show for weeks of negotiations.
While Mexico was spared the deployment of Trump’s “release day” price on April 2, the rate of 30% for the EU is 10% higher than what the president said that he would apply to the largest American trading partner in April but lower than his threat to mid-May 50%.
The European Union of 27 members is the largest trading partner in the United States-its $ 605 billion in imports in the United States exceeding Mexico, Canada and even China. The most precious category was drugs and pharmaceutical products, followed by cars and planes and other heavy machines. Trump has already threatened to impose a 200% rate on medicines imported into the United States, although it was not applied for at least 18 months.
The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, responded to the letter from Trump, saying in a press release that “few economies in the world correspond to the level of oppution of the European Union and membership of fair trade practices”.
But Von Der Leyen said that she “would take all the necessary measures to protect the interests of the EU”, including reprisal rates “if necessary”.
Mexico is that one of the most important business partners in the United States, with more than $ 505 billion in goods imported by American consumers and companies in 2024.
Mexico represented 69% of imports of American vegetables and 51% of imports of fresh American fruit in recent years, according to US agricultural service data. With a short lifespan, consumers could undergo price increases faster than with other goods.
The markets had spent most of the week to repel the previous escalations, leaving actions largely to the record summits they had taken up thanks to a loss of trade war in large part of the weeks. Trump himself praised the gains in an exclusive interview with NBC News.
But Friday, the main clues closed lower on Trump’s heels, promising to hit Brazil, a key source of products like coffee and orange juice, with a 50%price. Trump said the price was so high due to “unbearable trade deficits” even if the United States is currently taking place in his business with Brazil.
Trump also said that “the way Brazil treated former President Bolsonaro … is an international shame”.
In the case of the EU, the block currently has more than $ 100 billion in standby reprisals which can be quickly implemented. Some of these repuli tasks target the goods carried out in republican represented states, such as the soy of the original state of Louisiana and bourbon of President Mike Johnson, who is represented in the Chamber and in the Senate by an almost any republican delegation.
Other reprisals could target Boeing aircraft and American vehicles.
Analysts claim that the new Assaut prices add additional risks to a prospect of inflation which has already taken the outfit on the edge.
“Higher prices come into force in August could also mean that the inflationary effects take place later this year or even until next year, extending the calendar on higher inflation,” Citi analysts wrote in a note to customers published on Friday.
The European Commission, the executive branch of the EU, furiously negotiated an “agreement in principle” in order to avoid the outcome of being hit with one of Trump’s pricing letters.
Speaking on Wednesday before the European Parliament, the highest sales manager of the EU, Maroš Šefčovič, said that negotiations occurred “every day” between the two parties. “Above all, while other nations have been faced with an increase in the United States prices, the result of the letters that President Trump sent on Monday, our negotiations spared the EU to face higher prices.”
However, Šefčovič noted that the American team had “different perspectives” on the international trade relationship.
During the hour preceding Trump’s announcement, an EU official said that even if they were “entirely locked and loaded to conclude an agreement in principle”, they “have no update to indicate that this will happen imminently”.
