“Our negotiations with them are not bearing fruit! That is why I am recommending a direct 50% tariff on the European Union from 1 June 2025,” Donald Trump announced via his Truth Social profile, adding that “no tariff will be applied if the product is manufactured in the United States”.

Trump insisted that the European Union was created “with the main objective of taking advantage of the United States in the commercial sphere”.

In this regard, he accused the EU that its trade barriers, VAT (Value Added Tax), “ridiculous” sanctions on companies, non-monetary trade barriers, currency manipulations, “unjustified” lawsuits against US companies, among others, have generated a trade deficit with the United States that reaches “a totally unacceptable figure”.

The 50 per cent tax on all EU imports will drop to 25 per cent, or even to zero in the case of Apple, if its products, particularly iPhones, are manufactured in the United States.

The threats, uttered via social media, reflect, analyses the Associated Press (AP) news agency, Trump’s ability to disrupt the global economy with a burst of typecasting, as well as the reality that his tariffs are not producing the sufficient trade deals he seeks or the return of domestic production he promised voters.

The Republican president has said he wants to levy higher import taxes on products from the EU, a long-time US ally, than from China, a geopolitical rival that saw its tariffs cut to 30 per cent this month so that Washington and Beijing could negotiate.

Trump, AP points out, “was annoyed” by the lack of progress in trade negotiations with the EU, which has insisted on reducing tariffs to zero, even though the US President has publicly insisted on maintaining a basic tax of 10 per cent on most imports.