Trump claims European Union poses economic threat to US

Former president talks up his plan for tariffs to protect American manufacturers

Donald Trump has claimed that the European Union poses an economic threat to the US and is “very tough”.
The former president, speaking at the Economic Club of Chicago, complained about Germany’s car industry as he talked up his plan for tariffs to protect US manufacturers.
“You know what’s very tough? The European Union – our beautiful European countries,” he told interviewer John Micklethwait, the Bloomberg editor-in-chief.
“If you add them up they’re almost the size of us. They treat us so badly – we have a deficit.”
He then hit out at Angela Merkel, the former German chancellor, with whom he had a famously fractious relationship.
“I said to Angela Merkel, when she was there she’s not there any more, I wonder why,” he said to laughs from the audience. “I said, Angela, how many Chevrolets do you have in Berlin? ‘Why Donald, you have none.’”
Trump continued: “That’s right. You know how many [German] cars we have: Mercedes Benz, BMW, Volkswagen.”
The former president also took aim at Emmanuel Macron, claiming he blocked the French premier from imposing a tax on US companies in France by threatening a tariff on wine and champagne imports to the US.
“I’m charging you 100 per cent on every bottle of wine and champagne that comes into the United States of America,” he claimed to have told the French president, adding that Mr Macron backed down.
Trump’s targeting of European leaders came amid a renewed pledge to impose sweeping trade tariffs of up to “2,000 per cent” on imports that he claims would harm US industry.
Economists have widely condemned the policy as inflationary, with 40 million jobs and 27 per cent of US GDP thought to rely on trade that would be hit by the proposed tariffs.
Quizzed on the viability of his economic agenda, Trump said: “The higher the tariff the more likely it is that the company will come into the United States and build in the United States so that it doesn’t have to pay the tariff.”
He added that tariffs should be “so high, so horrible, so obnoxious that they’ll come right away”, suggesting he could put a “2,000 per cent tariff” on Chinese cars that are manufactured in Mexico and shipped into the US.
“They’re not going to sell one car into the United States,” he pledged.
His comments will fuel concern in Europe about what a Trump victory will mean for trade.
Half of Europe’s output comes from trade, double the rate in the United States, while the region’s 30 million manufacturing jobs – compared to only 13 million in the United States – mean it is highly vulnerable to anything that restricts commerce.
Elsewhere in the interview, the first Trump had undertaken with non-partisan media in a month, the former president repeated claims that there had been a peaceful transition of power after 2020 elections, despite protesters storming the Capitol on Jan 6.
The Republican candidate said there was “love and peace” in the crowd during the Capitol riots and falsely claimed “nobody was killed” except Ashli Babbitt, a Trump supporter who was shot and killed by police.
In fact, five people died in the riot and its immediate aftermath, including Brian Sicknick, a police officer.