![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/d67ff354-0be5-41ca-b816-2d687d2a61ac.jpg.webp.webp\")
Jonathan JosephsBBC business reporter<\/p>\n
Could Europe hit back with tariffs?published at 01:38 GMT<\/p>\n
01:38 GMT<\/p>\n
Jonathan Josephs
BBC business reporter<\/p>\n
![\"YVYBBC\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/8f08efba-a009-441d-8ea0-fe69a963359e.png.webp.webp\")
<\/p>\n
Trump’s tariff threats against Nato allies was on the minds of several readers. John, Denis, Vernon, Chris and Les all asked how European nations might hit back with their own tariffs.<\/p>\n
Less than six months ago, the US and the EU
\nagreed a deal that was supposed to stabilise transatlantic trade and provide
\ncertainty to businesses and consumers.<\/p>\n
European
\nCommission President Ursula von der Leyen came away from President Trump’s golf
\ncourse in Scotland with tariffs of 15% on everything the EU sells to the US –
\nfar better than the 30% America had threatened.<\/p>\n
Along the
\nway, Brussels also prepared a package of tariffs that would come into force if
\nit was unable to reach an agreement with the US.<\/p>\n
It included
\ntariffs on everything from livestock to aircraft parts to whiskey, totalling
\n\u20ac93bn (\u00a380bn; $108bn) worth of goods that the US sells to the EU.<\/p>\n
The
\nhigh-level agreement meant those taxes were suspended while details were worked
\nout, and the European Parliament was set to ratify the EU-US trade deal next
\nweek.<\/p>\n
But within
\nhours of Trump’s threat, influential German MEP Manfred Weber said approval was
\n“not possible at this stage”.<\/p>\n
Without the
\nEU signing off on last year’s deal or extending the suspension, the tariffs on
\nbillions of euros worth of American goods will kick in on 7 February.<\/p>\n
That risks a
\npolitical backlash in the US for Trump from companies that export to Europe.<\/p>\n
As for his
\nthreats of tariffs on some but not all EU countries, the commission said while
\nit was technically possible, it would be very difficult to implement given the
\nnumber of times goods cross EU borders before they are exported to the US.<\/p>\n
European
\nCommission spokesperson Olof Gill said Brussels would do “everything
\nnecessary to protect EU economic interests” – but ultimately, tariffs
\nwould only serve to harm businesses and consumers on both sides of the
\nAtlantic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Could Europe hit back with tariffs?published at 01:38 GMT 01:38 GMT Jonathan JosephsBBC business reporter Trump’s tariff threats…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":419850,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":{"0":"post-419849","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-united-states-of-america","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","14":"tag-us","15":"tag-usa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419849","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=419849"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419849\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/419850"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=419849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=419849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=419849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}