US President-elect Donald Trump speaks at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, USA on December 16, 2024.
brian snyder reuter
US President-elect Donald Trump told the European Union on Friday that it must narrow its trade gap with the US through oil and gas purchases or face tariffs.
“I told the European Union that we have to make up for our huge deficit with the United States by buying oil and gas on a large scale, or it’s going to be tariffs all the time,” Trump said shortly after 1 a.m. , posted on his platform “Truth Social”. E.T.
According to us numbersThe country’s goods and services trade deficit with the European Union was $131.3 billion in 2022.
President Trump has made threats of sweeping tariffs against U.S. trading partners including China, Mexico and Canada a centerpiece of his presidential campaign, even as economists warn of risks to domestic inflation. Despite this, he continues to make that claim even as he prepares to take office as president.
Analysts say there is great uncertainty about how much tariffs President Trump is willing or able to implement and how much of his statements will be a starting point for a consensus. It states that there is.
Enrico Letta, former Italian prime minister and dean of IE’s School of Political Economy and International Studies, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe” on Friday that the EU needs to be prepared to retaliate against President Trump’s threats.
“I think this is a transactional approach, and we have to respond to this transactional approach. [Trump] It is a combination of tariffs on energy, goods, manufacturing, etc. I think that’s wrong because the two topics are completely different,” Retta said.
“If this deal is being proposed by Trump, this kind of asymmetrical deal on unrelated topics, then I think we have to do the same thing.”
“Given that the most asymmetry is the financial relationship, we need to start considering that perhaps a financial response could be the solution,” he added.
The US will become the largest recipient of EU goods in 2023. 19.7% of exports.
CNBC has contacted the European Commission for comment.
This bulletin will be updated soon.
