Trump lashes out at EU: 'I will impose 25% tariffs across the board'

US President Donald Trump is now attacking the European Union. He said at a press conference after the first meeting of his cabinet that he will impose tariffs of 25% "across the board" on all EU products that try to enter through US borders.

The president did not elaborate further on the matter, only saying that "announcements will be made very soon." He also attacked the bloc, saying that it was created "to harm the United States," the Financial Times reported.

Although the tariffs will be general, several media outlets are stressing that Trump has directly attacked cars manufactured in Europe. A priori, these tariffs would be added to those he imposed in the middle of the month on steel, cars and pharmaceutical products, also of 25%, from anywhere in the world, but everything remains very unclear until the official announcement is made. "We will announce it soon," he said.

Trump has previously expressed his dissatisfaction with the value-added tax (VAT) applied in Europe, arguing that it creates a "competitive advantage" for European exporters and harms American companies that want to sell their products to the bloc.

At first glance, this announcement of 25% tariffs suggests that these are "reciprocal tariffs" that the US would like to impose to equalize the tax burdens faced by US products in other countries.

Specifically, Donald Trump argues that VAT acts as a "hidden tariff" because when applied to imported products, their price increases, affecting American competitiveness in the European market.

White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller himself had this to say on the matter: "Did you know that when you ship a car from the United States to Europe, if they even let it in because they have a lot of non-tariff barriers, between VAT and tariffs, that car pays a 30% tax? The German car, or a European car sent to the United States, pays a 2.5% tax, or basically 0%."

But many experts have already determined that this claim is not true. Sean Bray, Jared Walczak and Erica Yorc, experts at the Tax Foundation, a think tank based in Washington, categorically refute this claim in a study that says VAT is not a tax that harms US exports to the EU and "should not be used as a justification for retaliatory tariffs."