"EU must buy $350 billion in US energy" - Trump sets conditions to ease tariffs on bloc
The European Union will have to buy $350 billion in US energy to ease sweeping tariffs, US President Donald Trump said, rejecting Brussels' offer of "zero-for-zero" tariffs on cars and industrial goods.
Trump's comments were in response to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who earlier said the EU had offered to cut the bloc's tariffs to zero on cars and industrial goods imported from the US if Trump did the same.
Asked by a reporter if the offer was enough for him to back down, Trump said: "No, it's not."
"We have a deficit with the European Union of $350 billion and it will go away quickly," Trump said. "One of the ways it can go away easily and quickly is that they would have to buy our energy from us ... they could buy it, we could reduce the deficit by $350 billion in a week. They would have to buy and commit to buying that much energy."
Von der Leyen's offer came after Trump last week imposed 20 percent tariffs on the EU and a minimum 10 percent tariff on other trading partners. In response, financial markets around the world have lost trillions of dollars in value, with European stocks suffering their biggest one-day falls since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The US president doubled down on his criticism of the EU, but indicated he was ready to make a deal with the bloc, as long as it committed to closing the trade deficit with the US by buying more American energy.
The idea of buying energy from the U.S. in an effort to avoid tariffs is not new. Almost as soon as Trump was reelected, von der Leyen suggested opening negotiations to buy more American liquefied natural gas (LNG). But the U.S. has offered no clarity on how a deal would work.
Asked whether his global tariffs were a negotiating tactic or permanent, Trump said: "There could be permanent tariffs and there could be negotiations, because there are things that we need beyond tariffs. That is if we get a really fair deal for the United States, not a good deal for others, because now it comes to America first," Trump added.
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