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(Zero Hedge)—With Trump inching ever closer to unleashing the “most beautiful word in the dictionary” on America’s trading partners – especially after tonight’s disastrous Kamala Harris interview with Bret Baier – the European Union is bracing for the worst and according to Bloomberg, has already prepared a list of American goods it could target with tariffs if the former president wins the US election and follows through on his threat to hit the bloc with punitive trade measures.
Citing “people familiar with the bloc’s thinking”, Bloomberg writes that new levies against US firms aren’t a base case for the EU and will only be used to retaliate against a move by the White House. In other words, a threat to Trump when, not if, he becomes president again. Which is a bold move for Brussels, let’s see how it pays off for them when Trump and Europe, so desperate to export its goods anywhere now that China no longer wants much of what Europe has to sell and which exports far more to the US than it imports, launch a tit-for-tat trade war.
Trump caught the EU by surprise in 2018 when he hit European steel and aluminum exports with tariffs. In that instance, the bloc targeted politically sensitive companies with retaliatory duties, including Harley-Davidson motorcycles and Levi Strauss jeans. Since Trump’s win in 2016, the EU has adopted several trade defense tools, including an instrument to respond to economic coercion. Unfortunately for Europe, in the years since, the continent has been flooded with cheap Chinese EV models which have crushed what little is left of the German economy (now that cheap Russian gas is a thing of the past), and has forced it to fight for its “manufacturing powerhouse” survival. Which is why any trade war with the US will only lead to an accelerated demise of what is already a continent barely hanging on.
Meanwhile, Trump is unlikely to be scared off by the threat of retaliatory tariffs: “to me, the most beautiful word in the dictionary is ‘tariffs,’ Trump said Tuesday in an interview with Bloomberg News Editor-in-Chief John Micklethwait, where he reiterated his desire to impose broad tariffs against trading partners post the election. “It’s my favorite word.”
Trump has said that as president, he would target countries like China with tariffs anywhere from 60% to 100%, with a 10% across-the-board tariff on imports from other countries. He could also impose counter-measures against European digital services taxes that implicitly go after US technology champions.
“Our allies have taken advantage of us. More so than our enemies,” Trump said. “Our allies are the European Union. We have a trade deficit of $300 billion with the European Union.”
The news is the latest development as the EU prepares an impact assessment of the consequences of the November ballot, paying particular attention to the scenario in which Trump emerges as victor. Regardless of who wins the election, trade relations with the US will be a top priority. In the event of a Harris win, the EU will seek to sort out several of the irritants left unsolved during Biden’s presidency such as a permanent deal to get rid of the remaining steel and aluminum tariffs, said the person.
Harris has cast Trump’s tariffs as a tax on American consumers, even though her senile, demented boss whom she overthrew in a quiet palace coup in July, has refused to drop any of them
Even though Biden’s rhetoric has been more conciliatory than Trump’s, and his alignment with the EU over Ukraine has helped to repair the transatlantic relationship, EU officials remain conscious that his trade policy still has much in common with his predecessor’s ‘America First’ approach. The Europeans were shaken, in particular, by Biden’s $390 billion-plus subsidy program to support green technology, which offers companies an incentive to shift investment from Europe to the US.
Afghan Who Plotted Election Day Terrorism Was a CIA Contractor
by Headline USA
It looks like the FBI may have entrapped a former CIA contractor in a plot to commit a terrorist attack on Election Day. The Justice Department announced this week the arrest of Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi, a 27-year-old Afghan man, alleging that he was planning an Election…
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Genetically Modified Crops: A Growing Threat to Health and the Environment
by Olivia Cook
(Natural News)—Bioengineered foods and genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are commonly confused with each other, but they have different meanings. “Bioengineered” describes food and products that are enhanced with scientific techniques to add particular traits. In contrast, “GMOs” involve changing the genetic makeup of animals, plants or microbes in ways that…
United Nations Expands into “UN 2.0” to Turbocharge Sustainable Development Goals
by Liberty Sentinel
The United Nations (UN) has not gone rogue, argues journalist Alex Newman on American Family Radio’s show, At the Core , but they have always existed to achieve one goal: one-world government. This goal is not only un-American, but it is unbiblical. Newman and AFR host Walker Wildmon also dive…
Congressman Matt Gaetz Says Epstein Was Killed as Part of a ‘Foreign Operation’
by Modernity
Republican Congressman Matt Gaetz says sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein was killed as part of a ‘foreign operation’, but refused to divulge which government was responsible for his death. Gaetz made the comments during an appearance on Benny Johnson’s show. In August 2019, Epstein was found unresponsive in his jail cell…
DOJ Takes Aim at Breaking Up Google
by Infowars
On Tuesday, the United States announced potential plans to request a court mandate directing Alphabet Inc to divest significant segments of its operations, including its Chrome browser and Android operating system. This move aims to dismantle what is described as an illegal monopoly held by Google in the online search…
Is Gavin Newsom Hoping that Kamala Harris Loses the Election?
by American Greatness
Two minutes of airtime during the Democrat National Convention in Chicago gave California Governor Gavin Newsom his latest opportunity to build his national stature. As part of the announcement of Kamala Harris’s clinching of the Democrat presidential nomination during a symbolic roll call of state delegates, Newsom portrayed Harris as…
Is It Time for a Nationwide Ban on Fluoridated Water?
by Natural News
Do community leaders reserve the right to mass medicate every person in their community using the water supply as a vector? What if that medicine was eventually exposed as a POISON decades later? What if that POISON was damaging the brains of children and stunting the cognitive development of the…
GOP Rep. Luna: We Need to End FEMA Migrant Spending and Boost Disaster Relief Funding
by Breitbart
On Wednesday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “Ingraham Angle,” Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) stated that FEMA’s funding for migrants should be zeroed out at once and that while there is FEMA money for hurricane victims, we should also boost emergency relief funding “that will go directly to Americans…
Earth’s Continental Crust in America and China Is Breaking Apart
by End Times Headlines
Researchers, who have been studying the dramatic changes in the continental configurations of Earth over the past billions of years, have made a stunning observation: that the oldest continental crusts are disintegrating. According to experts, the Earth’s crust went through expansion and contraction and has transformed not only its positions…
“Line All Those Guys Up and Shoot Them”: Professor Says Men Who Don’t Support Female Candidates Should Be Massacred
by Daily Caller
(Jaryn Crouson, DCNF)—A professor at the University of Kansas (UK) told a class that men who would not vote for a female president should be lined up and shot, according to a video posted on X Wednesday. The university confirmed the professor is employed at UK and made the comment…