Canada and the EU swiftly retaliate against Trump’s steel and aluminum tariffs

[Edge Guerrero]

BY LORNE COOK, DAVID MCHUGH AND ROB GILLIES

BRUSSELS (AP) — Major trade partners swiftly hit back at President Donald Trump’s increased tariffs on aluminum and steel imports, imposing stiff new taxes on U.S products from textiles and water heaters to beef and bourbon.

Canada, the largest supplier of steel and aluminum to the U.S., said Wednesday it will place 25% reciprocal tariffs on steel products and also raise taxes on a host of items: tools, computers and servers, display monitors, sports equipment, and cast-iron products.

Across the Atlantic, the European Union will raise tariffs on American beef, poultry, bourbon and motorcycles, bourbon, peanut butter and jeans.

Combined, the new tariffs will cost companies billions of dollars, and further escalate the uncertainty in two of the world’s major trade partnerships. Companies will either take the losses and earn fewer profits, or, more likely, pass costs along to consumers in the form of higher prices.

Prices will go up, in Europe and the United States, and jobs are at stake, said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

“We deeply regret this measure. Tariffs are taxes. They are bad for business, and even worse for consumers,” von der Leyen said.

The EU duties aim for pressure points in the U.S. while minimizing additional damage to Europe. EU officials have made clear that the tariffs — taxes on imports — are aimed at products made in Republican-held states, such as beef and poultry from Kansas and Nebraska and wood products from Alabama and Georgia. The tariffs will also hit blue states such as Illinois, the No. 1 U.S. producer of soybeans, which are also on the list.

Spirits producers have become collateral damage in the dispute over steel and aluminum. The EU move “is deeply disappointing and will severely undercut the successful efforts to rebuild U.S. spirits exports in EU countries,” said Chris Swonger, head of the Distilled Spirits Council. The EU is a major destination for U.S. whiskey, with exports surging 60% in the past three years after an earlier set of tariffs was suspended.

Could there be an agreement that takes increasing tariffs off the table?

Von der Leyen said in a statement that the EU “will always remain open to negotiation.”

Canada’s incoming Prime Minister Mark Carney said Wednesday he’s ready to meet with Trump if he shows “respect for Canadian sovereignty″ and is willing to take ”a common approach, a much more comprehensive approach for trade.″

Carney, who will be sworn in in the coming days, said workers in both countries will be better off when “the greatest economic and security partnership in the world is renewed, relaunched. That is possible.”

“We firmly believe that in a world fraught with geopolitical and economic uncertainties, it is not in our common interest to burden our economies with tariffs,” she said.

The American Chamber of Commerce to the EU said the U.S. tariffs and EU countermeasures “will only harm jobs, prosperity and security on both sides of the Atlantic.” “The two sides must de-escalate and find a negotiated outcome urgently,” the chamber said Wednesday.

What will actually happen?

Trump slapped similar tariffs on EU steel and aluminum during his first term in office, which enraged European and other allies. The EU also imposed countermeasures in retaliation at the time, raising tariffs on U.S.-made motorcycles, bourbon, peanut butter and jeans, among other items.

This time, the EU action will involve two steps. First on April 1, the commission will reimpose taxes that were in effect from 2018 and 2020, but which were suspended under the Biden administration. Then on April 13 come the additional duties targeting 18 billion euros ($19.6 billion) in U.S. exports to the bloc.

EU Trade Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič traveled to Washington last month in an effort to head off the tariffs, meeting with U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and other top trade officials.

He said on Wednesday that it became clear during the trip “that the EU is not the problem.”

“I argued to avoid the unnecessary burden of measures and countermeasures, but you need a partner for that. You need both hands to clap,” Šefčovič told reporters at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France.

Canada is imposing, as of 12:01 a.m. Thursday 25% reciprocal tariffs on steel products worth $12.6 billion Canadian (US$8.7 billion) and aluminum products worth $3 billion Canadian (US$2 billion) as well as additional imported U.S. goods worth $14.2 billion Canadian ($9.9 billion) for a total of $29.8 billion (US$20.6 billion.)

The list of additional products affected by counter-tariffs includes tools, computers and servers, display monitors, water heaters, sport equipment, and cast-iron products.

These tariffs are in addition to Canada’s 25% counter tariffs on $30 billion Canadian (US$20.8 billion) of imports from the U.S. that were put in place on March 4 in response to other Trump tariffs that he’s delayed by a month.

European steel companies brace for losses

The EU could lose up to 3.7 million tons of steel exports, according to the European steel association Eurofer. The U.S. is the second-biggest export market for EU steel producers, representing 16% of the total EU steel exports.

The EU estimates that annual trade volume between both sides stands at about $1.5 trillion, representing around 30% of global trade. While the bloc has a substantial export surplus in goods, it says that is partly offset by the U.S. surplus in the trade of services.

https://apnews.com/article/trump-eu-tariffs-countermeasures-806a3b9bcc9cd4e45817e672d95f0070

[Masato]

Trump is making everyone here run around like fools

None of the politicians know how to react. My only guess is perhaps this is all part of the script to crash the existing financial system and start up a global free trade digital currency.
But it's only a guess at this point, I really have no idea what Trump is thinking. I do believe he has a long-term plan though, he didn't just think this stuff up after getting elected.

[Megaterio Llamas]

The Don of a new era.

[Edge Guerrero]

Trump is making everyone here run around like fools

None of the politicians know how to react. My only guess is perhaps this is all part of the script to crash the existing financial system and start up a global free trade digital currency.
But it's only a guess at this point, I really have no idea what Trump is thinking. I do believe he has a long-term plan though, he didn't just think this stuff up after getting elected.

- Nothing.

[Edge Guerrero]

Trump announces sweeping global tariffs, risking a trade war and inflation

US President Donald Trump announced plans for sweeping tariffs Wednesday, saying “our country has been looted, pillaged, raped, plundered” by other nations. The aggressive rhetoric came as Trump showed a willingness to dismantle a global economic system that the United States helped to build after World War II. Trump said the US would charge a 34% tax on imports from China, a 20% tax on imports from the European Union, 25% on South Korea, 24% on Japan and 32% on Taiwan.

US President Donald Trump ignited a potentially ruinous trade war Wednesday as he slapped sweeping 10 percent tariffs on imports from around the world and harsh additional levies on key trading partners.

Speaking in the White House Rose Garden against a backdrop of US flags, Trump unveiled particularly stinging tariffs on China and the European Union on what he called "Liberation Day."

Trump's tariffs triggered immediate anger, with US ally Australia blasting them as "unwarranted" and Italy calling them "wrong," while other countries have already vowed retaliation.

"For decades, our country has been looted, pillaged, raped and plundered by nations near and far, both friend and foe alike," Trump said.

Wall Street was closed when Trump made his announcement but the S&P index was down 1.5 percent in after-hours trading. The dollar fell one percent against euro as he was speaking, but then recovered.

Trump reserved some of the heaviest blows for what he called "nations that treat us badly," including 34 percent on goods from superpower rival China, 20 percent the European Union and 24 percent on Japan.

But the 78-year-old Republican -- who held up a chart with a list of the biggest levies -- said that he was "very kind" and so was only imposing half the amount that the "worst offenders" taxed US exports.

'Make America wealthy again'

For the rest, Trump said he would impose a "baseline" tariff of 10 percent, including another key ally, Britain.

An audience of cabinet members, as well as workers in hard hats from industries including steel, oil and gas, whooped and cheered as Trump said the tariffs would "make America wealthy again."

"This is Liberation Day," Trump said, adding that it would "forever be remembered as the day American industry was reborn."

Sweeping auto tariffs of 25 percent that Trump announced last week are also due to take effect at 12:01 am (0401 GMT) Thursday.

Canada and Mexico are not affected by the new tariffs as Trump has already imposed levies on the two US neighbors for what he says is their failure to crack down on trafficking of the drug fentanyl.

Trump had telegraphed the move for weeks, insisting tariffs will keep the United States from being "ripped off" by other countries and spur a new economic "Golden Age."

But many experts warn the tariffs risk triggering a recession at home as costs are passed on to US consumers, and a damaging trade war abroad.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent warned nations not to impose countermeasures, saying on Fox News: "If you retaliate, there will be escalation."

The world has been on edge ahead of Trump's announcement, and his tariffs hit countries all over the globe.

Some of the worst hit were in Asia, including 49 percent for Cambodia, 47 percent for Vietnam and 44 percent for military-ruled Myanmar, which was recently hit by a devastating earthquake.

One country attracting the highest rate of 50 percent was Lesotho -- the southern African nation that Trump recently called a country "nobody has ever heard of."

'Totally unwarranted'


The tariffs will also reinforce fears that Trump is backing even further away from US allies towards a new order based on a vision of American supremacy.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Thursday said the tariffs were "totally unwarranted" and would change the perception of the relationship with the United States.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, a close Trump ally, said the levies on the EU were "wrong" but pledged to work with Washington for a deal.

Britain escaped relatively lightly after a diplomatic offensive that included Prime Minister Keir Starmer turning up to the White House with an invitation from King Charles III for a state visit.

But it remains committed to sealing a trade deal that could "mitigate" the 10 percent tariff it now faces, business minister Jonathan Reynolds said.

Trump has had a long love affair with tariffs, insisting in the face of experts that they are a cure-all for America's trade imbalances and economic ills.

The billionaire insists the levies will bring a "rebirth" of America's hollowed-out manufacturing capacity, and says companies can avoid tariffs by moving to the United States.

https://www.france24.com/en/americas/20250402-trump-announces-sweeping-global-tariffs-risking-trade-war-and-inflation-economy-trade-european-union-china-us

[Luigi]

The tariffs directly corelate to how much trade deficit countries have with America, suggesting the motivation behind this whole scheme is actually not tariff revenue, but rather to bring back manufacturing from Asia to America. Will this be possible though considering it will have to be the cheap stuff they make in Vietnam and China?

Anyways, I found this article written about this which I am not endorsing but must repost because its all about ancient economics and I love that:

https://www.newsmax.com/acraigcopetas/c ... d/1205565/

What is it with tariffs?

President Donald Trump says they’re terrific.

“To me the most beautiful word in the dictionary is tariff; it’s my favorite word,” is his take on the effectiveness of slapping a costly consumer tax or duty on foreign goods entering the U.S.

“Will there be some pain? Yes, maybe (and maybe not!),” Trump all-capped later in a social media post. “But we will make America great again, and it will all be worth the price that must be paid.”

The European Union says Trump is overdrawn at the memory bank.

“Tariffs are not a good idea,” French President Emmanuel Macron warned.

“Tariffs. Wrong,” German Chancellor Olaf Scholz admonished.

“Tariffs are a very direct attack,” Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney added.

In the lands beyond America’s shores, tariffs are primarily reviled as the bulwark of the hoary mercantilist policies that greased the French Revolution in 1789; aggravated the Great Depression in 1930; and persuaded the Old Testament prophet Abraham to skedaddle the city state of Ur for the Mediterranean coast circa 1900 B.C.

“Now the Lord said unto Abraham,” according to Genesis, “get thee out of Ur.”

The Lord apparently knew His economics.

“Bad economic behavior contributed to Ur’s downfall,” ancient-economics analyst Steven Garfinkle, professor of Sumerian history at Western Washington University told me shortly after my 2003 stopover at the Great Ziggurat during Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Although the American-built berms and barbed-wire that protected Camp Dracula outside Nasiriya have now crumpled, the terraced stone ziggurat inside the old air base still stands 98-feet-tall as the capitol of the greatest business story ever told.

It was here where the Sumerian city state of Ur managed its economy, and whose ruins betray the lingering folly of the world’s earliest economic system to have left detailed records.

In 2021, even Pope Francis visited the Great Ziggurat seeking answers.

“This blessed place brings us back to our origins,” Francis said.

Now, with pundits and politicos shrieking praise and screaming scorn on Trump’s tariff tactics, it’s time to shake the skeletons found in and around the ziggurat. What you’ll hear is a genuine monetary horror story, the first known diagram of how to fall off a fiscal cliff.

“Ur is the origin of modern political economy, and it failed because of the irrationality of its governing system,” Garfinkle said.

“Ur collapsed because the system could not be controlled,” added Wojciech Jaworski, a Sumerian financial archeologist with a doctorate degree in computer science at the University of Warsaw Institute of Informatics. “Ur was bad management and corruption so rampant that individuals who produced goods lost all motivation to produce.”

The Polish professor spends his days using sophisticated computer models to probe the cryptic fiscal data Urian scribes some 4,000 years ago scratched on now fragile cuneiform tablets. The Sumerian Economic Corpus, Ur’s ersatz Bureau of Labor Statistics, contains over 45,000 of these tablets out of around 100,000 that archaeologists have dug up from that period, detailing everything from worker’s salaries to travel diets.

It’s no surprise that the lists of sacrificial lambs transferred to administration officials in the month of sze-kin-ku5 fail to appear on U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick’s roster of current economic indicators. Yet Jaworski and his colleagues maintain the statistics have a mighty depressing tale to tell.

Ur’s ruling class ignored the significant climate and environmental disruptions that advanced the kingdom’s disintegration. The tablets chronicle droughts, changing river patterns and a recognizably massive build-up of silt that barred ships from accessing the Persian Gulf.

Daily life, nonetheless, continued on a purely materialistic course and, historians say, focused on earning the maximum amount of wealth and enjoying the highest degree of comfort and luxury. Although the citizens of Ur were a religious people with many gods, their prayers exclusively pleaded for prosperity and commercial success.

“Everyone was very suspicious of everyone else,” Jaworski said. “They would complain and frequently resorted to royal courts to get their way. Ur was the most centralized and perhaps litigious state the world has ever known.”

It was a period of history when plutocrats were worshiped as priest kings.

“Ur’s politicians and merchants were one and the same, exercising power simultaneously in different sectors,” Garfinkle told this reporter a quarter century before Trump anointed the multibillionaire Elon Musk sovereign of the Department of Government Efficiency. “The people of Ur would have found resignations to avoid conflicts unfathomable.”

Tariffs on goods brought into the city were rampant. Insider trading was encouraged. “Entrepreneurs got ahead on the basis of their connections,” Garfinkle said. “Think of Walmart, Apple and Microsoft ruling the country as a combined family-controlled government business without shareholders. That’s how Ur was run. A kleptocracy.”

War was big business, a core sector, underwritten mostly by agriculture and precious metal trading.

“Fealty and the collection of tribute from military conquest created an elite caste accustomed to success,” Garfinkle said. “It’s naive to think that society at large profited from this.”

Owen said Ur ultimately collapsed into dust because the city state ran out of money.

“Actually, Ur ran out of sheep,” Garfinkle clarified. “Sheep and urban real estate were Ur’s principal fixed assets. The elite became too addicted to booty. All loans were guaranteed by oaths in the name of the king because it was the king – the government – who ultimately paid off all outstanding loans.”

The widely distinguished post-Keynesian wit and economist John Kenneth Galbraith would have likely considered the Ur indicator of little value when applied to the modern global economy. “The only function of economic forecasting,” Galbraith mischievously told his students, “is to make astrology look respectable.”

But if ancient Ur is indeed a harbinger of America’s future, Garfinkle urges executives of all stripes to not even think about taking a day off. “Managers who failed to appear,” Garfinkle warned, “were hunted down and thrown in work camps.”