Trump Says He’s Not Looking to Make a Deal With EU After 50 Percent Tariff Announcement

President Donald Trump said Friday that he is not looking to reach a tariff deal with the European Union, after he announced 50 percent duties on goods imported from the 27-nation bloc.

“We’ve set the deal—it’s at 50 percent. But again, there is no tariff if they build their plant here,” Trump said, also saying that as of “right now, it’s going on June 1st.”

Elaborating, Trump said that the United States has “a big deficit with them” and that they “sell millions and millions of cars” to the United States, but that in return, the EU restricts U.S. car imports.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, in a Friday interview on Fox News’ “America’s Newsroom,” indicated that other countries have been making trade offers in good faith, and that talks advanced with some of them, including India and some Asian countries that have made some “very interesting proposals.”

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“And I believe the president believes that the EU proposals have not been of the same quality that we’ve seen from our other important trading partners,” Bessent said.

The secretary added that the feedback he’s getting from some EU countries is that they are unaware of proposals being put forth by the European Commission from Brussels.

“I’m not going to negotiate on TV, but I would hope that this would light a fire under the EU,” Bessent said. “The EU has a collective action problem here. It’s 27 countries, but they’re being represented by this one group in Brussels.”

Several European officials responded to the announcement on Friday. German Economy Minister Katherina Reiche said in a statement that “trade conflicts have no winners” and that “we must do everything to ensure that the European Commission reaches a negotiated solution with the United States.”

“We (the EU) will stick to the path we’ve chosen. At the same time we will see how negotiations will proceed after today’s announcement. We have seen before that tariffs can go up and down in talks with the U.S.,” said Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof in a statement.

Aside from the new tariff on EU imports, Trump also wrote on social media that he would add a 25 percent tariff on Apple iPhones that are manufactured outside the United States.

“I have long ago informed Tim Cook of Apple that I expect their iPhone’s that will be sold in the United States of America will be manufactured and built in the United States, not India, or anyplace else,” the president wrote in a Truth Social post. “If that is not the case, a Tariff of at least 25 percent must be paid by Apple to the U.S.”

Later in the day, Trump told reporters inside the Oval Office that his proposed tariff on Apple would also apply to “Samsung and anybody that makes that product,” referring to smartphones.

He also said he expected the new phone levy to be in place by the end of June.

The White House paused most of the punishing tariffs Trump announced in early April against nearly every country in the world after investors sold off U.S. assets, including government bonds and the U.S. dollar. The president left in place a 10 percent baseline tariff on most imports, and later reduced the 145 percent import tax on Chinese goods to 30 percent.

Reuters contributed to this report.