President Donald Trump has threatened to impose a 50 percent import tax on anything brought into the U.S. from the European Union and is warning that he will unilaterally slap a 25 percent tariff on any Apple products unless the most valuable technology company in the United States begins manufacturing iPhones inside the country.
Trump took to Truth Social to repeat his oft-stated false claim that the European Union was formed “for the primary purpose of taking advantage of the United States on trade” and complained that the 27-member bloc “has been very difficult to deal with” because of what he called “powerful Trade Barriers, Vat Taxes, ridiculous Corporate Penalties, Non-Monetary Trade Barriers, Monetary Manipulations, unfair and unjustified lawsuits against Americans Companies, and more.”
He groused further about how the U.S. runs a more than $250,000,000 trade deficit with the E.U. — an accurate number for manufactured goods but grossly overstated when the amount of services purchased from the U.S. are taken into account — calling it “totally unacceptable” and stating that trade talks with the E.U. are “going nowhere.”
He added: “Therefore, I am recommending a straight 50% Tariff on the European Union, starting on June 1, 2025. There is no Tariff if the product is built or manufactured in the United States. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”
Trump’s latest bellicose missive against America’s largest trading partner came just moments after he threatened to target America’s most valuable corporate citizen with a 25 percent tax on the the country’s most popular mobile phone unless it is fully manufactured within the U.S.
In a separate Truth Social post, he said he’d informed Apple CEO Tim Cook “long ago” that he “expect[s]” that the company iPhones destined for the U.S. market would be “manufactured and built in the United States, not India, or anyplace else.”
“If that is not the case, a Tariff of at least 25% must be paid by Apple to the U.S.,” he said.
Trump’s post appeared to be a tacit admission that importers and consumers, rather than foreign countries, are responsible for paying the tariffs he has imposed and threatened to impose.
The pair of early morning threats roiled American futures and global stock markets, which promptly fell in the moments after his post.
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