EU Braces for Trade Challenges as Trump Returns

CGTN Europe

The reelection of Donald Trump could have a major impact on trade relations between the European Union and its two biggest economic partners: the U.S. and China.  But how? CGTN’s William Denselow has more: https://tinyurl.com/ydsus3uy   #GlobalTrade #Trump2024 #EU #USRelations #ChinaTrade

Transcript

00:00A call for Europe to show some bite. After Donald Trump's election win, French President

00:08Emmanuel Macron warned that in a world of herbivores and carnivores, the European Union

00:14must be prepared to defend itself.

00:17Most omnivores tend to be scavengers. And I'm not so sure whether that was an appropriate

00:24allegory, but I think what we are looking at here, especially from the perspective of France,

00:31is that it needs Europe as nimble as possible.

00:36The EU is bracing for a more protectionist president in Washington.

00:41In his first term in office, Donald Trump imposed tariffs on European steel and aluminium

00:46and became embroiled in a broad-ranging trade dispute with China. This time around,

00:51he's threatened tariffs of up to 20 per cent on all goods coming to the US

00:56and duties of at least 60 per cent on Chinese imports.

01:01Before the US public went to the polls, the EU already had a task force in place

01:07to prepare for the possibility of a Trump presidency. European Commission President

01:13Ursula von der Leyen says the first step is to engage with America's Commander-in-Chief.

01:20A dispute over electric vehicle tariffs has fuelled trade tensions between the EU and China

01:26over recent months. With an uncertain road ahead, the EU's next potential foreign affairs chief

01:33has laid out her vision regarding economic foreign policy.

01:38That our economy does well, that our economy is competitive. Sometimes we have maybe let our

01:45guard down in this regard, that we don't defend our interests as much as we should defend our

01:52interests. The EU has floated the idea of increasing its intake of US liquefied natural

01:58gas as a way to appease the new administration in Washington. But analysts say the EU has some

02:04guardrails should those efforts fail. We have an autonomous

02:10regulation that allows us to impose counter sanctions. And we have also a number of

02:18regulations under the pretext of environmental protection that keeps US agricultural products

02:25out. And we have also something called anti-coercion instruments. Analysts say the

02:31three-way relationship between China, the US and the EU is far from black and white. Now the world

02:37waits for the Trump presidency to begin and whether the three powers will seek a carrot or

02:43stick approach to international trade. William Denslow, CGTN, Brussels.

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