{"id":16677,"date":"2025-03-08T14:49:10","date_gmt":"2025-03-08T14:49:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=16677"},"modified":"2025-03-08T14:49:16","modified_gmt":"2025-03-08T14:49:16","slug":"opinion-trump-needs-to-drop-the-eu-trade-war-and-face-the-real-enemy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=16677","title":{"rendered":"Opinion | Trump Needs to Drop the EU Trade War and Face the Real Enemy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>&#8220;The trade deficit is huge. It stands at $235.6 billion \u2014 a 12.9 percent increase since 2023. EU countries impose an average 5 percent tariff on U.S. goods, while the U.S. imposes an average 3.3 percent tariff on European goods. Even worse, the EU collects a 10 percent tariff on car imports \u2014 that\u2019s four times America\u2019s 2.5 percent.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8230;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;This has to change \u2014 and it can \u2014 but not through a tit-for-tat race to higher tariffs. Rather, we need to lower tariffs and observe symmetry. Ideally, EU-U.S. trade would be tariff-free. However, if that\u2019s unachievable, tariffs should be, on average, 2 percent on both sides. That would create a huge stimulus for both economies, and it could be the basis and precondition for what is existentially necessary: a common trade strategy on China.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8230;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;If Trump is serious about \u201cAmerica First,\u201d there\u2019s one thing he should come to terms with \u2014 it shouldn\u2019t mean \u201cAmerica Alone.\u201d More leverage at the negotiating table with China, a healthy U.S. economy without inflation, and a prosperous Germany that could turn around a stumbling EU would be in the interest of the American people&nbsp;<em>and<\/em>&nbsp;Europe.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/magazine\/2025\/03\/03\/u-s-eu-trade-war-china-00206789\">https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/magazine\/2025\/03\/03\/u-s-eu-trade-war-china-00206789<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;The trade deficit is huge. It stands at $235.6 billion \u2014 a 12.9 percent increase since 2023. EU countries impose an average 5 percent tariff on U.S. goods, while the U.S. imposes an average 3.3 percent tariff on European goods. Even worse, the EU collects a 10 percent tariff on car imports \u2014 that\u2019s four times America\u2019s 2.5 percent.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This has to change \u2014 and it can \u2014 but not through a tit-for-tat race to higher tariffs. Rather, we need to lower tariffs and observe symmetry. Ideally, EU-U.S. trade would be tariff-free. However, if that\u2019s unachievable, tariffs should be, on average, 2 percent on both sides. That would create a huge stimulus for both economies, and it could be the basis and precondition for what is existentially necessary: a common trade strategy on China.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;If Trump is serious about \u201cAmerica First,\u201d there\u2019s one thing he should come to terms with \u2014 it shouldn\u2019t mean \u201cAmerica Alone.\u201d More leverage at the negotiating table with China, a healthy U.S. economy without inflation, and a prosperous Germany that could turn around a stumbling EU would be in the interest of the American people and Europe.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/magazine\/2025\/03\/03\/u-s-eu-trade-war-china-00206789<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[89,221,924,217,165,728,923,272,355,727,314,208,141,226,227,170],"class_list":["post-16677","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article-share","tag-china","tag-donald-trump","tag-eastern-europe","tag-economics","tag-economy","tag-europe","tag-european-union","tag-foreign-affairs","tag-foreign-policy","tag-germany","tag-international-relations","tag-tariffs","tag-taxes","tag-trade","tag-trade-war","tag-trump"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16677","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16677"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16677\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16679,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16677\/revisions\/16679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}