President Trump warned the European Union Saturday that it can expect new taxes on cars if they follow through with their threat to increase tariffs on U.S. companies.
If the E.U. wants to further increase their already massive tariffs and barriers on U.S. companies doing business there, we will simply apply a Tax on their Cars which freely pour into the U.S. They make it impossible for our cars (and more) to sell there. Big trade imbalance!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 3, 2018
The EU made the threat in reaction to Trump's announcement this week that the U.S. would impose tariffs of 25 percent on imported steel and 10 percent on imported aluminum. The governmental body is considering increasing tariffs on Harley-Davidson, bourbon and Levi's blue jeans, according to European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, who told Trump that two can play at "stupid."
"So now we will also impose import tariffs," Juncker said. "This is basically a stupid process, the fact that we have to do this. But we have to do it. We will now impose tariffs on motorcycles, Harley Davidson, on blue jeans, Levis, on Bourbon. We can also do stupid. We also have to be this stupid."
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"We would like a reasonable relationship to the United States, but we cannot simply put our head in the sand," he added.
Other foreign leaders like Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau criticized President Trump for his new tariffs, telling him it would hurt more people than he thinks.
"We are impressing upon the American administration the unacceptable nature of these proposals that are going to hurt them every bit as much as they will hurt us."
Still, Trump is defending his decision.
When a country (USA) is losing many billions of dollars on trade with virtually every country it does business with, trade wars are good, and easy to win. Example, when we are down $100 billion with a certain country and they get cute, don’t trade anymore-we win big. It’s easy!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 2, 2018
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