Donald Trump makes a risky bet by asking his trade war with the EU

Donald Trump loves doing business. And he can calculate that his sudden escalation of tariffs on the EU Brussels will push to make great concessions if he opens a new front in his global trade war.

But it's a risky bet. Although the trade talks between the USA and the EU have slowly moved, Trump's threat of lending all imports from the block of June 1, 50 percent tariffs, dramatically raised the economic and diplomatic operations.

The step threatens to endanger the latest recovery in global stock prices, which is triggered by Trump's tendency to dealmaking and de -escalation with other trading partners, including Great Britain and China. It could also damage tense transatlantic relationships.

Gambling reflects the frustration of the president and his top officials with what they see as a disability of the EU in the negotiations – and the conviction that Brussels first agree or suffer more than the USA if there is no deal.

“It is a classic Trump bullying tactics, it is what he does. If he does not understand what he wants, he's back and makes more threats, and then he is waiting to see what happens,” said Bill Reinsch, a specialist policy expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

“It is supposed to make Europeans withdraw – my reading is that they don't,” he added.

In the Oval Office on Friday afternoon, Trump insisted that he was not looking for a quick agreement with Brussels, and swore that the 50 percent tariffs would come into force on June 1st as planned. “That's how it is,” he said.

The US Finance Minister Scott Bessent told Fox News that the purpose of the planned tariffs was to “set a fire under the EU” – which indicates that there was a certain scope for negotiations before or after the deadline on June 1st.

But the Brinkmanship creates uncertainty, warn economists. “The proposed tariffs on the EU emphasize an important risk of forecast in which the tariffs remain an ongoing instrument that is to be exposed to the Trump administration if the negotiations are hit on a hook. Repeated tariff threats and rollbacks are increased,” wrote the advisory company Oxford Economics on Friday.

The exact requirements in Washington on Brussels are unclear. In his social media post on Friday, Trump rattled his dissatisfaction with many aspects of the EU tax, regulation and trade policy, which would be difficult to address.

Trade experts in Washington say that the administration is frustrated that the EU offers do not differ from those that it has made in the United States in the past.

“Normal methods of diplomacy and traditional approaches to trade negotiations have not led to a US-EU trade agreement of an administration. I am therefore not surprised that the president takes a completely different attack on the EU,” said Kelly Ann Shaw, a former official of the White House in the first term of trump and a partner in the international trade policy in the law firm Akin Gump.

“These threats of much higher tariffs create an action drive in which the two sides either come to an agreement or they are not,” she added.

“The American perspective is that Europeans do not understand that this time is different and that it is not a conventional negotiation,” said Reinsch from CSIS.

On Friday, the EU commissioner Maroš Šefčovič spoke to the US Minister of Trade Howard Lutnick and the sales representative Jamieson Greer, but there was no breakthrough.

“EU-US-trade is unsurpassed and must be guided by mutual respect and not by threats. We are ready to defend our interests,” wrote Šefčovič after the discussions about X.

EU officials draw Trump's demands and wondered why the world's biggest merchant block in the world should offer one -sided concessions.

They argue that there is only about 1 percentage point difference between the EU and US tariffs and say that the value tax corresponds to approximately equivalent sales tax.

Brussels also hesitates to be denied the US market access to other countries, which would violate the rules of the world trade organization.

Officials also point out that trading policy from the European Commission, while the US problems have the United States, are national.

“The EU negotiator should keep their nerves. It certainly signals Washington's tail and impatience to complete a deal,” said Georg Riekeles, deputy director of the European Political Center in Brussels.

Riekeles asked the EU to copy Canada and China by highlighting it. “If the EU is ready to defend itself, US bullying and escalation is ultimately so that you can enter a territory.”

Countries such as Ireland and Italy that rely on US exports have worked hard for strong countermeasures – and Trump will count on Schisfen within the block to force the EU's hands.

But Michael Smart, a former democratic congress trade at Rock Creek Global Advisors, a advisory group in Washington, warned that “Trump's plan should separate the block, it will probably have the opposite effect”.

So far, most Member States have the commission's approach to get involved, but time to eat, and the view that Trump will finally return because his tariffs will cause the US economy. You have announced that Brussels is happy to be firm.

“One of the reasons why the markets have calmed down is that they have already taken more concessions from Trump into account,” said an EU diplomat.

“We do not make any political decisions based on tweets, at least not on this side of the Atlantic,” said another.