Escalating a trade war with Europe, President Donald Trump said Wednesday the U.S. will counter the European Union’s retaliatory tariffs on U.S. exports announced earlier in the day.
“Of course I’m going to respond,” Trump told reporters after the EU announced new tariffs on $28 billion worth of U.S. products in retaliation for Trump’s 25% blanket tariffs that went into effect Wednesday on all aluminum and steel imports. “Look, the EU was set up in order to take advantage of the United States.”
Trump made the threat as he met in the Oval Office with Ireland Prime Minister Micheál Martin. Trump said Ireland is among the EU nations taking advantage of the U.S., singling out U.S. pharmaceutical companies that have relocated to Ireland.
“Look the Irish are smart. You have smart people,” Trump said, turning to Martin. “And you took our pharmaceutical companies, and other companies, through taxation. They made it very good for companies to move over there.”
Trump’s aggressive use of tariffs, including 25% duties on many goods imported from neighboring Canada and Mexico, has rattled the stock market and stoked consumer anxieties over fears of rising costs.
Trump did not explicitly identify which EU products the Trump administration might target with additional tariffs, which he has argued are needed to rebuild domestic manufacturing in key industries. But in his meeting with the Irish leader, Trump talked repeatedly about pharmaceutical imports, an area that he’s previously promised to target with tariffs.
“When the pharmaceutical companies started to go to Ireland, I would have said, that’s OK if you want to go to Ireland, I think it’s great,” Trump said. “But if you want to sell anything into the United States, I’m going to put a 200% tariff on you. So you’re never going to be able to sell anything into the United States. You know what they would have done? They would have stayed here.”
Trump has previously promised 25% tariffs on imports from the EU as part of new reciprocal tariffs, set to go in effect April 2, whereby the U.S. will respond to any country’s tariffs applied to U.S. exports by matching with identical tariffs of the same rates.