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, reports The Guardian.
It came as the EU moved to de-escalate tensions after the blunt move by Trump on Saturday. The bloc declared a further pause on €21bn of retaliatory tariffs until 1 August, dovetailing with the US president’s new deal deadline.
At the same time, the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, and the Indonesian president, Prabowo Subianto, announced a “political agreement” on a free trade deal on Sunday, ending nine years of negotiations.
Indonesia, one of the fastest-growing economies in the world, had recently come to the view that the EU, despite its hostility to regulation, was a more stable partner than the US, said one diplomat.
The EU has stepped up its efforts to forge new agreements with South American and Asian partners after Trump blew up the world’s trading system, with hopes that deals with India, Thailand and others can be concluded by year end.
Macron 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.
Read more of this report from The Guardian.