The French president, Emmanuel Macron, has called on the EU to “defend European interests resolutely” after Donald Trump threatened to impose 30% tariffs on nearly all imports from the EU.
He said the EU should be ready for a trade war and to stand up to the US president who was only last week expected to approve a 10% tariff agreement in principle with the bloc.
“It is more than ever up to the commission to assert the union’s determination to defend European interests resolutely,” Macron said on social media. “In particular, this implies accelerating the preparation of credible countermeasures, by mobilising all the instruments at its disposal, including anti-coercion, if no agreement is reached by 1 August.”
Other European leaders called for calm, including in Italy, the Netherlands, Germany and Ireland. But reflecting the shock around the bloc over Trump’s threat, the influential Federation of German Industries (BDI) said Trump’s announcement was “a wake up call for the industry on both sides of the Atlantic”.
Macron’s call for trade war readiness came in contrast to Berlin, which urged a “pragmatic” response. “The EU now must, in the time that remains, negotiate in a pragmatic manner a solution with the United States,” Germany’s economy minister, Katherina Reiche, said in a statement. “A pragmatic outcome to these negotiations must be reached quickly.”
Giorgia Meloni, the prime minister of Italy, who enjoys good relations with Trump, said in a statement she trusted “a fair agreement” could be reached. “It would make no sense to trigger a trade war between the two sides of the Atlantic,” she said.
The Dutch prime minister, Dick Schoof, said on social media the EU “must remain united and resolute” in its aim to reach a “mutually beneficial” deal with the US.
Ireland’s deputy prime minister, Simon Harris, said “there is no necessity to escalate the situation”. Trump has previously accused Dublin of stealing US business by luring in tech and pharma companies.
Ambassadors are to meet in Brussels on Sunday to discuss tactics ahead of a scheduled summit of trade ministers on Monday where divisions in approach may be underlined.
The threat of a 30% tariff is being seen as a negotiating tactic, but behind the scenes there is fury with many viewing it as a dangerous transatlantic game at at time of grave global instability.
Trump’s latest salvo is in line with his April “liberation day” claim that the EU was charging unfair duties of 39% on US imports, an analysis widely discredited with EU officials pointing to an average of about 2.5%.
Some MEPs have warned that if they start accepting “illegal” tariffs as the new norm, Trump will just come back for more. “It is matter of showing the EU is not a victim, is not paralysed in itself or scared,” the Italian MEP Brando Benifei, a member of the international trade committee, said last week.
Germany’s Association of the Automotive Industry warned about the prospect of rising costs for carmakers and suppliers and said it was “regrettable that there is a threat of a further escalation of the trade conflict”.
Germany’s car industry is already reeling from the 25% hike in tariffs on exports to the US on top of the pre-existing 2.5%, while its steel industry is having to cope with punitive tariffs of 50%.
It is understood the agreement in principle that was on Trump’s table offered potential tariff relief for any European car manufacturers with plants in the US, which included Mercedes Benz, BMW and Volkswagen along with the Swedish brand Volvo.
Last week the Swedish finance minister called the agreement “really bad” while at the same time saying that some economic pain was inevitable.
EU-US trade is worth €1.4bn a year but just three countries – Germany, Italy and Ireland, with its large multinational pharma sector – export more to the US than they import.
Emanuele Orsini, the president of Confindustria, the confederation of Italian industry, said the EU must not escalate. “Now we all need to keep calm and hold our nerve,” he said.
But in the north of the country, the Confindustria Veneto president, Raffaele Boscaini, said there would have to be supports for industries in the event of higher tariffs. “The EU and the Italian government will have to intervene with concrete measures to support the competitiveness of our companies: investment and access to credit, bureaucratic and fiscal relief as well as the definition of energy policy,” said Boscaini, who is head of marketing at Masi, the leading producer of Amarone wine, which would be hit hard by a 30% tariff.