"Europe is shaped to destroy the US" - Trump vows to impose 25% tariffs on the EU!
US President Donald Trump held his first cabinet meeting of his second term on Wednesday, vowing to impose 25% tariffs on the European Union and claiming the bloc was “set up to destroy the United States.” Trump also briefly invited tech mogul Elon Musk to speak, who sat on the sidelines of the meeting, wearing a ‘Sport IT’ shirt and a black ‘Make America Great Again’ hat.
The US president has vowed to impose 25% tariffs on the European Union (EU), claiming the bloc was created to "screw the United States". It is not the first time Trump has threatened the EU with tariffs. Last week, the Republican president said that "the EU has been very unfair" to the United States and vowed to impose tariffs on imports of cars, pharmaceuticals and chips.
Speaking at a cabinet meeting, he stressed that the US feels exploited. “They (the EU) don’t take our cars, they don’t take our agricultural products in essence, they use all the reasons why not, and we take everything from them and we have about a three hundred billion deficit with the EU ,” Trump said.
A European Commission spokesman responded that "the EU will react firmly and promptly against unjustified barriers to free and fair trade, including when tariffs are used to challenge lawful and non-discriminatory policies." EU leaders have strongly opposed tariffs in the past and have vowed to fight tariffs if they were implemented. Asked by a reporter what would happen if countries tried to retaliate, Trump said they could try, but claimed they would not succeed.
"We are the pot of gold. We are the ones that everybody wants and they can retaliate. But it can't be a successful retaliation because we just retaliate. We don't buy anymore. And if that happens, we win, " Trump responded.
Speaking about the war in Ukraine, Trump declined to go into detail about what concessions he would ask both sides to make. However, the US president ruled out Ukraine's aspirations to join NATO. Trump said Kiev "can forget" about joining the military alliance . "I think that's probably why this whole thing started," he added, referring to Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The US president is expected to host Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the White House on Friday, where they will sign a minerals deal that gives the US access to Ukrainian minerals in exchange for continued support from Washington. Trump has long complained that the United States has spent too much taxpayer money to prop up Ukraine. "The previous administration put us in a very bad position, " he said.
He believes the deal will serve as a chance for Kiev to pay the US back, "we were able to make a deal where we get the money back and a lot of money in the future." When asked to further specify what concessions would be agreed upon, Trump turned the floor over to Vice President JD Vance, who backed away from reporting that the US president had made concessions in talks with Putin.
"Every time the president engages in diplomacy, you guys accuse him of acquiescing to Russia, " Vance said. " He's not giving anything to anyone. He's doing the job of a diplomat. And he is, of course, the chief diplomat as president of the United States."
The US president also briefly invited billionaire Elon Musk to speak at the meeting. The billionaire is not a cabinet member, but has a leadership role in the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). “ The overall goal here with the DOGE team is to help address the huge deficit that we simply cannot sustain as a country with a $2 trillion deficit ,” Musk said. He added that without DOGE, “America would go bankrupt.”
Musk acknowledged that DOGE can make mistakes in its efforts to cut government spending. He cited the department's accidental cancellation of USAID's Ebola Prevention programs as an example. Musk insisted that there was "no disruption" to services before funding was restored.
Since taking office on Jan. 20, Trump has temporarily frozen all foreign aid, including efforts to combat the spread of the deadly virus. A USAID official said Wednesday that no funds for the agency's Ebola response have been released since the funding freeze. The tech mogul also defended his "pulse-check" emails, in which he demands government employees justify their work from the previous week under penalty of termination.
He said the requirement is not "a high bar" to meet. Musk, who believes some people on the government payroll are dead or imaginary, said the emails serve as a way to check whether workers are real, alive and can "write an email."
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