Using one of his favourite weapons to win an argument, the president underlines the unstable nature of any deal with Trump
Donald Trump’s threat to impose fresh tariffs on eight European countries – UK, Norway and six EU member states – is a wrecking ball to the carefully stitched deals he concluded with those countries last summer.
It also disregards the fact that individual member states do not have individual trade deals with the US. All EU international trade deals are conducted centrally through Brussels, as was the case with last summer’s deal.
A spokesperson for the European Council said on Saturday evening they were coordinating a joint response to Trump’s latest missive, but the Swedish prime minister has already rejected the US president’s threats. Ulf Kristersson said that “only Denmark and Greenland decide questions that concern them”.
The UK’s trade deal, as it was described last May, is in fact a thin tariff deal on a limited number of products – cars, beef, aerospace, ethanol and steel – with a 10% tariff deal on other exports ranging from salmon to bone china.
