Traditional American allies across Europe and Asia have criticised United States President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs, stressing the sharp impact the measures would bring to the global economy, with some countries not ruling out retaliatory actions.
The European Union on Thursday said Trump’s tariffs were a “major blow” to the world economy and warned of “immense consequences”.
The EU was ready to negotiate with the US but the bloc was also “prepared to respond”, and already preparing for “countermeasures to protect our interests and our businesses if negotiations fail”, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said.
“As Europeans, we will always promote and defend our interests and our values. We will always stand up for Europe.”
While Europe agreed with Trump that other economies were “taking unfair advantage of the current rules”, von der Leyen stressed that “reaching for tariffs as your first and last tool will not fix it”.
She said the global economy would “massively suffer” and “uncertainty will spiral and trigger the rise of further protectionism”.
“The consequences will be dire for millions of people around the globe, also for the most vulnerable countries, which are now subject to some of the highest US tariffs, the opposite of what we wanted to achieve,” she said, adding that consumers around the world would quickly feel the impact of tariffs.
