President Donald Trump, after speaking to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on May 25, said it would be his "privilege" to give talks between the EU and the U.S. the same runway as other talks to avoid a hike in reciprocal tariffs.
One of the lawyers representing five importers suing President Donald Trump over his emergency tariffs said that the president's approach to tariffs, constantly threatening various new rates, sometimes backing off, and sometimes not, isn't just a "menace to the economy," it also "is totally at odds with the rule of law."
President Donald Trump elaborated on his tariff intentions with reporters in the White House, after posting online earlier in the day that 50% tariffs would begin on EU exports on June 1, and that he would be imposing a 25% tariff on imported iPhones.
The head of the Africa Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace said that Africans who are worried about the possible end of the African Growth and Opportunity Act should remember that it's not just their countries that are losing trade access.
Cecilia Malmstrom, a former top European Commission trade official, said the EU is "painfully aware that the transatlantic relationship as we used to know it has been severely damaged."
The top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, is leading a delegation to Ottawa this weekend. Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., who led the effort to end 25% tariffs on Canadian goods, and Sens. Peter Welch, D-Vt., and Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., also are going.
More than 40 companies and trade groups, from businesses with 26 employees to one with 32,000, are asking that 25% Section 232 tariffs on steel and aluminum be applied to hundreds of "derivative" products made by foreign competitors.
If de minimis ends for all imports in July 2027, as proposed in the tax bill currently being considered in the House of Representatives, the U.S. Treasury would collect an additional $5.2 billion in the first full fiscal year after the change, mostly in tariffs, but including $231 million in customs user fees.
The American Association of Port Authorities, which represents 80 U.S. ports, told the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative that adding a 100% tariff to ship-to-shore cranes made by Chinese companies or with Chinese components will increase costs for its members without creating domestic manufacturing.
Imposing tariffs on the European Union at the same time you're insisting that the continent spend more on its own defense undermines that request, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., and two Democratic colleagues told the president in a letter last week. That's because even a 10% tariff on EU exports will stifle its economy, they argued.