He called him from the Leyen, said Trump. “She said that she wanted to start serious negotiations.” The conversation was “very good” that he had agreed to move the date of new tariffs “to July 9,” he said. Now there should be further discussions.
The EU Commission President said on Sunday that she had a “good phone call” with the US President. Europe is ready to “drive the negotiations quickly and determined”. But it takes time “until July 9”. On this day, the previous period ends that Trump had set.
At the beginning of April, he had imposed high additional tariffs against numerous states and the EU, but shortly afterwards reduced it to a basic customs of ten percent for 90 days. The EU then tried to negotiate Washington. In the event of a failure, the EU has prepared counter -tariffs. They are supposed to hit US products worth almost 100 billion euros. Both sides finally agreed to suspend the mutual tariffs by July.
On Friday, Trump heated up the customs dispute again and threatened tariffs of 50 percent from June. As a reason for this, he stated that the talks with Brussels did not go on the subject.
The stock exchanges reacted to Trump’s threat on Friday. The markets recovered on Monday. The DAX increased by 1.6 percent, the central French index CAC40 by 1.1 percent. The stock exchange in London and Wall Street were closed due to holidays.
Jochen Stanzl, analyst at the CMC markets trading platform, spoke of a well-known “Trump pattern”: “First a threat, then a setback, followed by a quick recreation, since speculative investors expect the US president’s concession.”
According to the EU Trade Commissioner Maros Sefcovic, Brussels continues to hope for an agreement based on “respect” and not on “threats”. The EU is “determined to achieve an agreement that works for both sides,” he said on Friday.
According to Federal Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil (SPD), “a solution has to come quickly”. “Otherwise we will also experience a massive unrest in the markets,” said the Vice Chancellor on Sunday evening in the “Report from Berlin” of the ARD. He called “now solutions so that we work together and so that we can also see how we can strengthen the economy”. Klingbeil also said that he was “carefully optimistic in this regard that this succeeds”.
