The EU has agreed to impose retaliatory tariffs on €21bn (£18bn) of US goods, targeting farm produce and products from Republican states, in Europe’s first act of retaliation against Donald Trump’s tariffs.
The EU plans to introduce 25% tariffs on scores of goods from almonds to yachts, with the first duties being collected from 15 April, while the bulk apply from 15 May and the remainder from 1 December.
In a statement confirming the favourable vote by EU member states, the European Commission said: “The EU considers US tariffs unjustified and damaging, causing economic harm to both sides, as well as the global economy.”
The tariffs include US soya beans, grown abundantly in Louisiana, the home state of the House of Representatives speaker, Mike Johnson.
Ahead of the vote, analysis of the leaked list of customs codes by Politico found that EU duties would hit up to $13.5bn (£10.6bn) worth of exports from red states, including beef from Kansas and Nebraska, cigarettes from Florida and wood products from North Carolina, Georgia and Alabama.
The EU is facing calls to target US tech firms or banks in future retaliation, a potent but politically explosive target, as the US runs a €109bn (£94bn) trade surplus with the EU in service industries.
The outlook for negotiations is uncertain, amid questions over whether Trump’s goal is to create leverage over other countries – suggesting tariffs could be rolled back – or to raise revenues and reindustrialise the US, which points to their longevity.
Stop fucking around and go for the tech
I think that one’s coming as retaliation to the flat 20% so in like a month or three.
Good thing I don’t like almonds. Too bad about my yatcht ambitions tho. Oh well, maybe I’ll switch to a helipoopter
May I recommend one of these European Yacht manufacturers? Or a Eurocopter?
I dunnoooóoo… American helipoopters are bigly the crashiest!
Thanks, can you also recommend good almonds while you’re at it?
I mean they could go 250% on the yachts
25% on tech services is where you’ll see America panic.
How? Most multi-national companies are invoicing locally, or at least regionally.
They are subsidiaries of US companies. You draft a list of wholly or majority US owned tech subsidiaries, and you tax them out of the wazoo, done.
I’m sure tax and trade experts can come up with better approaches.
And now we’re even further into fantasy land. Governments don’t make tax laws targeting specific individuals or companies, you don’t want them to do that. They don’t target Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos, they target yacht sales and capital gains.
God I love the “it’s so easy!” crowd.
And I love impotent people.
Governments can and do target individuals, see sanctions on russian oligarchs. How is your memory so bad?
Plus, new tax rules are drafted every single year, to encourage or slap down specific stuff, why you acting like it’s impossible when it’s not even rare?
But they still ‘import’ the provided service. I wonder if they can actually manage to get a company like netflix to pay import duties on foreign (read: us) made content, but if they find a way we’re talking about a serious amount of money.
A tax on tech services would crush the US economy. And to be honest, every country should be taxing outside tech services - its a substantial risk to just hand out that data to foreign corporations and a substantial risk of lock in.
It doesn’t work like that though. I (Netflix USA Ltd.) do hereby grant a license to you (Netflix Ireland Co.) for my complete catalog for $0/year. You’re not even charging people to watch my content, it comes free with their monthly subscription. If you want to advertise your service just buy some impressions from Facebook UK. All hosted by AWS in the EU.
I’m sure there must be some taxable services, I just can’t think of any examples, and I’m pretty sure it’s not the people that you’re thinking of.
Yea it’s a better position to try and take them on IP control.
I assume deals like this go out the window if they also mean Netflix Ireland can’t take Irish people to court for copyright infringement.
No physical good crosses a border, which is the point when a tariff has to be paid normally. The cargo isn’t allowed into the country unless the tax is paid.
Internet sevice providers could easily be roped into policing this. If you have a website with a paid service you can charge them a fee based on their monthly rates or the ISP gets a shutout notice for your business. You could even compel visa and mastercard to snitch on their accounts to get accurate subscription numbers without hassle.
They could shoot a guy in the face who places an order for a yacht for all i care.
Good odds that guy is going to be an assistant or something.
I… I’m actually kind of surprised that American cigarettes are an export item. Surely to expats and pro-American Europeans who have lost all sense of taste and smell?
I always find it interesting how people become expats instead of immigrants just based on the fact that their country of origin is the US or the UK. Englishman in Spain? expat. US American in France? Expat. Pakistani in the UK? Immigrant. Mexican in the US? Immigrant.
Just depends on the perspective of the speaker.
If I live in the UK and my neighbour leaves the UK to go to Spain - Expatriate.
If I live in Spain and the same person arrives to be my neighbour - Immigrant…well, inmigrante.
Does tobacco grow as well in France as it does in Carolina?
Tobacco is the original American export
Aw man, I was gonna buy a yacht from Europe
If you are in the US: that is not how it works. US yachts will become more expensive in Europe. Not the other way around.
I’m Canadian
Unless the Canadian government put a tariff on US/EU yachts they’re still as cheap as ever.
What if I want to go to Europe and buy an American yacht?
20% less cheap, unless you go to a European country that is not in the EU and that country didn’t put a tariff on US yachts.
Then good luck bringing it across the pond I guess.
Oh no, not the yachts!
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Good.
Oh no! Anyhow, is there nothing coming from the US that startz with Z?
Zionism, but the EU doesn’t really need any more of that
All the US horse exporters are busily painting stripes on their animals right now.
All those US zebra exports…
Zinc?
Bezos in shambles. Yaughts 25% more expensive
Thank your local magats with a beat down
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EU retaliates by hurting its own citizens with higher import tax? This is just covid surcharges all over again.
Tell us about your plan
Give tax discounts on euro goods. Economy grows in Europe and still hurts the states by decreasing its imports.
Maybe I’m not really understanding what’s going on. But it seems everyone in the states and the rest of the world is pissed off by these tarrifs. So how is adding more tarrifs making the situation better? Can someone explain that to me? What am I missing?
I’m in Australia, so I’m not taking sides.
Subsidizing European goods would cost a lot of money, break tons of trade agreements and hit all non-European countries.
I think targeting specific US luxury products is a good way to retaliate the orange idiots tariff trolling.
The reality is the seller bears part of the tariff so the consumer doesn’t pay the entire increase. That’s why tariffs have reciprocal tariffs in response. No one wants to admit it because it means Trump might be half right about something.
Tariffs increase prices but not necessarily by the same percentage as the tariff itself.
Tariffs are basically import duties usually for a specific group of products from a specific country or region, the reason they counter the US tariffs is to pressure them into excluding them. So yes they hit European citizens with this tax, but because they buy less they also ‘punisg’ the company selling the products. The goal is to get the US to be nice to them, by showing them what it feels like if the US isn’t nice to them. It’s a bit like ‘if I can’t play with your toys, you can’t play with mine’.
There is an interesting back and forth though I guess. Say from the American point of view you have almonds. EU is like tax them so people won’t want them here. But all the Americans are like damn, why euro almonds so expensive. And they’ll stick to us almonds. I guess theoretically the real winner will be the environment with less shipping containers being sent everywhere…but that also seems unlikely at this point. The spice must flow
You’d be right if everything is grown and made everywhere. And there are plenty of luxury goods where it would be better if people didn’t make a big deal out of it like with french champagne and Italian marble. It is also weird with clothing, the US and EU have plenty of fashion companies that could theoretically make a profit even if only selling in their home market. But where ever the brand is from, most clothing is made outside of US and EU. Why? The cost of labour. And you’ll need some very high import duties if you want to counter them low wages.
