Trump threatens the European Union with 50% tariffs starting June 1

Washington / Brussels / BarcelonaPresident Donald Trump's new twist in the trade war with the EU. The US president returns to the attack, announcing this Friday that he intends to impose a direct 50% tariff on goods imported by the United States from the EU starting June 1. Although the European Union believed negotiations between the two powers were moving forward, Trump justified the move by arguing that Brussels is "very difficult to deal with." "I recommend 50% tariffs on the European Union starting June 1, 2025. There will be no tariff if the product is built or manufactured in the United States," the president said. European stock markets, which had enjoyed a quiet session, all fell sharply after the news broke. The Ibex 35 fell 1.18% to 14,104.1 points, and US equity markets also opened the session in the red.

The U-turn has caught Europeans off guard, who had been counting on the partial truce Trump had announced in mid-April, given that he had lowered EU tariffs from 20% to 10%. The president reiterated that the European Union was created "with the primary purpose of taking advantage of the United States." He also once again criticized taxes and measures that are general and have nothing to do with international trade. He called value-added taxes (VAT) a "major trade barrier," EU regulations "unfair and unfounded," and the sanctions applied by Brussels and the European courts against some major American companies, such as technology companies, "ridiculous."

The new figure announced by the president is much higher than 20% and comes after weeks of setbacks in his trade policies, especially with China. It seems Trump wants to apply the same tactic he has followed with Beijing: betting on increases, with maximum measures, to dictate the framework of the negotiations from which to start and thus obtain political gains. Trump not only uses tariffs to dictate economic policies, but also to obtain other political concessions that go beyond the markets. China's initial reaction was not to shrink and to counterattack with retaliatory tariffs.

Impact on consumers

Although now the tariffs that Trump has proposed for the Asian giant are 80% (up from 36% on April 2, climbing 145%), markets and large companies like Walmart have already warned the Republican that a trade war of this magnitude with China is not sustainable without impacting consumers. However, the trade relationship with Europe is different and does not necessarily have to affect the entire economy equally.

To justify this new about-face, Trump has lied again and claimed that the United States has a trade deficit of $250 billion a year. "This is a totally unacceptable figure. Our conversations with them are going nowhere," the Republican said. However, this figure is not true, and the European bloc's trade surplus with the US powerhouse is much smaller. According to Eurostat, the trade balance was positive for the EU by €198 billion. Furthermore, these calculations do not include the services sector, such as digital platforms, where the United States stands to gain significantly. Although data for 2024 is not yet available, the US powerhouse's surplus in 2023 rose to €104 billion. Therefore, the EU surplus does not even reach €100 billion, much less than half of what Trump claims.

Once again, the markets have collapsed in the face of the president's new tariff mania, and the dollar has fallen again. Furthermore, Trump has not only threatened the EU with 50% tariffs, but also issued a clear warning to Apple: either manufacture its iPhones in the United States or "the tax will be at least 25%" for the company. "I informed Tim Cook of Apple some time ago that I expect iPhones sold in the United States of America to be manufactured and assembled in the United States, not in India or anywhere else," Trump wrote early this morning on Truth Social.

The announcement catches the EU off guard

Trump's new threat comes at a time when optimism had gained strength in Brussels and among EU member states, especially after the agreements signed between the United States and the United Kingdom and China. In fact, the vast majority of European partners viewed these understandings as positive for Washington, and European Trade Commissioner Maros Sefcovic announced last week that he had agreed with the Republican administration to "intensify contacts" with US authorities in the coming days with the intention of closing a trade agreement and signing a truce in the tariff war. Brussels said that negotiations between the two powers were "moving forward."

Thus, Trump's announcement this Friday has caught the European Union completely off guard, and it has yet to react. New Yorker.

Catalonia, with little exposure to the US economy.

The Catalan economy is growing at a much faster rate than the eurozone average, and the latest Brussels economic forecasts, published this Monday, indicate that this gap will continue. One of the key factors is each country's exposure to the US economy. While EU sources note that the Spanish state and Catalonia have "limited exposure," they assert that the consequences of the tariff war could be more severe for major exporting powers, such as Germany. In fact, Brussels revised its economic growth forecasts for 2025 downwards for the eurozone as a whole to 0.9%, and for Germany to 0%. In contrast, it raised Spain's rate to 2.6%, the same rate the government forecasts for Catalonia.

In this regard, both sources from the European Commission and experts in the field assure ARA that the Principality's exports are diversified, and that's why the Catalan economy will suffer less from the first blow of Trump's trade war. However, Oriol Amat, an economics professor at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB), warns that Catalonia, in the "long run," could also be affected "indirectly." "We could start to notice it a year or a year and a half from now," estimates the expert.

Technical sources from the European Commission point out that a eurozone in recession or with anemic economic growth could "drag down" the State and Catalonia, since they export primarily to the rest of Europe. Along the same lines, they warn that if, for example, Germany or France have more difficulty exporting to the United States, they will try to find new markets, which could saturate them and, therefore, increase competition for Catalan companies, especially within the EU.

Furthermore, Josep Lledós, professor of economics at the Open University of Catalonia (UOC), adds that "a prolongation of the current state of uncertainty could result in a slowdown in the volume of investment by Catalan companies." "If they lose momentum, this will affect economic growth," warns the expert. However, he disagrees with the European Commission's prediction of a slowdown in tourism in Spain and Catalonia due to the EU economic slowdown, and predicts a good tourist season. "European tourism is very well established," argues the UOC professor.

However, it's worth noting that the economic forecasts published by the European Commission last Monday don't include a potential 50% increase in US tariffs, but rather the 10% currently being applied. Therefore, the consequences for the eurozone economy and our country could obviously be even more significant and immediate.