What happened to Trump’s claim “200 deals already”?
EU Talks Going Nowhere
NBC reports Trump says talks with E.U. are ‘going nowhere,’ threatens 50% tariff in June
In a post on his Truth Social platform, Trump wrote that he was “recommending a straight 50% Tariff on the European Union, starting on June 1, 2025.” That rate would be higher than the 39% Trump promised to hit the bloc with on April 2’s so-called Liberation Day.
Just minutes earlier, Trump had also threatened Apple with a 25% tariff if it does not start producing iPhones in the United States — an outcome industry experts broadly see as a nonstarter. “The concept of Apple producing iPhones in the U.S. is a fairy tale,” prominent tech analyst Dan Ives said in response to Trump’s threat Friday.
Trump has repeatedly assailed the European Union, calling it “in many ways, nastier than China.” On tariff rates and what the U.S. calls “non-tariff barriers,” Trump has said, “They’ll come down a lot. You watch.” But the bloc has refused to alter its value-added tax, a frequent point of contention for Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and other U.S. officials.
Speaking on CNBC shortly after Trump’s social media posts, Chicago Federal Reserve President Austan Goolsbee noted, “10% was going to be the highest tariff rate that we had on the world in 90 years. To go to 50% is a completely different order of magnitude.”
The E.U. bloc is America’s second-biggest trading partner behind China. The United States exported more than $350 billion of goods to the 27-nation bloc in recent years and imported $550 billion worth of goods. [False – the EU is first and China is fourth! NBC’s Steve Kopack confuses trade deficits with overall trade]
Trading Partners Imports and Exports
US Balance of Trade – Goods Only 10 Select Countries Plus EU
Putting 50 percent tariffs on your largest trading partner is downright stupid.
And please look at Canada. For all of Trump’s bluster, the US goods trade deficit with Canada is a mere $64 billion.
If one factors in services, the US barely has a trade deficit with Canada.
Nontrade Barriers and the VAT
Trump claims the EU’s VAT discriminates against the US. Once again, Trump is economically illiterate. I will discuss VATs in a separate post.
There are other genuine non-tariff barriers, especially with China, and those are a legitimate concern.
But the bottom line is Trump’s vision of “Reciprocal Tariffs” is nonsense because it relies heavily on seriously wrong VAT theory.
Good Proposals Coming In
The Hill quotes Bessent Countries bringing ‘good proposals’ with ‘a few exceptions’
“I can tell you that, with a few exceptions, the countries are coming with very good proposals for us,” Bessent told CNN’s Jake Tapper. “They want to lower their tariffs; they want to lower their nontariff barriers.”
If they are good proposals, with few exceptions, then take them and name them.
No one believes these lies.
Comment of the Day
One of my readers who posts under the name “PreCambrian” made this astute observation.
Trump couldn’t legislate his agenda because by the time they even typed the bill for a vote he would have changed his mind.
About all he can do is threaten companies and people. Of course now he also has the various departments of the government threaten and/or restrict any person, company, or institution that he doesn’t like such as cancelling Harvard’s ability to enroll foreign students.
Next it will be the ability of some company to obtain or renew H1B visas.
Related Posts
April 25, 2025: Trump Tells Time Magazine He Has Made 200 Deals Already, Refused to Name Any
Check out this incredible interview with Time.
May 20, 2025: Hoot of the Day: Trump Threatens a Return to Reciprocal Tariffs
We’ve gone from 200 deals “100%” to threats of returning to reciprocal tariffs if countries don’t deal.
The fact is Mexico is the largest US trading partner as an individual nation. If we include the EU as a bloc, it is number 1, Mexico is number 2, Canada is number 3, and China is number 4.
For discussion of trading partners, please see Fact Check on Trump’s Claim “We Don’t Do Much Business with Canada”
“We don’t do much business with Canada from our standpoint, they do a lot of business with us.”
Also see 90 Trade Deals in 90 Days, a Midpoint Update, Where Are We?
How is the administration’s call to do 90 deals in 90 days going?
Trump gave countries a 90 day reprieve. How long is 90 days?
Obvious from the Beginning: The EU is never going to give up its VAT so EU talks were always doomed from the start on this reciprocal nonsense.
Progress was always imaginary.
The VAT is what funds the EU.
The EU cannot levy any taxes in European nations
Most of its income are pass through slices of the VAT across the countries.
For the EU to give up VAT (the member nations levy VAT) would be literal suicide, even though many people would be happy and say good riddance. Agriculture, industry, and regional economic transfer funds are all funded from VAT revenue.
Trump so often comes across as economically illiterate and retarded almost.
he’s not that good.
Using the repeated same old cheap tactic –
everybody knows what is coming in 7 days.
Too cheap, man.
It is a joke.
Neptune revolves around the sun the slowest. It takes approximately 165 Earth years to complete one orbit. Mercury is the planet that revolves around the Sun the fastest. It completes one orbit in about 88 Earth days. chairman mao zeDon is combo. feels like neptune time but bombarded with shizo stuff at mercury pace.
Clearly Trump and his cronies need another insider trading payday. Monday we’ll hear about the “beautiful offers from all 3923 European countries”. All tariffs will be off again (in fact, Biden caused them) and the Trump leeches will make a killing in option insider trading.
Trump wet himself last night and in his rage came up with a 50% tariff on the EU?
Sounds like he is opening EU markets for Russian energy and Chinese products that would have been bought by Americans. Helpful to China and Russia but not for America.
Tariffs are on importers of EU products and thus bore by American consumers.
Not one dime is paid by Europe for these tariffs and all they do is discourage the collection of sales taxes and raise prices for limited availability of product.
Elections have consequences!
Send in the clowns
there ought to be clowns….
Next it will be the ability of some company to obtain or renew H1B visas.
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IT USED TO BE under some number 100 or 200 thou per year.
(I got one many years ago)
dont know now, but trump will just restrict to smallest number possible
i guess EU/Russia and china already cracked internal soul of mr. trump!
he is narcissist, so give him something, promise more, PRAISE as much as possible
and wait for elections in congress , less 2 years
Repubs will lose lower chamber, and so Trumps’ BEAUTIFUL train will stop ON tracks.!
Maybe. Hes gonna blame the courts the dems. Anyone but himself and a good chunk of the republican base will believe him. Throw in the gerrymandering some conservative talk shows and targeted adds. And well see. Also they may not like trump and still vote for the republican congressman who enabled him.
from Zh
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During several lengthy interviews this morning on Fox News and Bloomberg TV, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said there could be “several large” trade deals announced in the next couple of weeks, adding that he expects Trump administration officials will meet with their Chinese counterparts again in-person to negotiate those tariffs. He also said he expects the US budget deficit “to be something with a 3% in front of it by 2028” with revenue from tariffs to be used to solve the deficit.
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jesus!!
so basically USA economy is about $28*30 trln, so now it is 2+ trln deficit now and it will be $1 trln..
so, tariffs will bring 1 trln $$, +-100 bln
jesus!!
what a liar!!!!!
Now, he said ‘could’ be. That’s bullshit, not a lie.
sorry , my fault!! i looked at figures..
bullshit or lie. AIN’T GONNA HAPPEN!
Woohoo! More tariff announcements! More uncertainty. More market volatility! Love it!
Too bad it’s difficult for the EU to sign any kind of deal with Trump. It takes a consensus of all Euro members which could take months or years.
Otherwise they could do what the UK did; agree to a meaningless deal that changes close to nothing so Trump can crow about what a great deal maker he is. I have a suggestion. Europe could drop it’s 10% tariffs on US cars and light trucks. And the US could drop it’s 25% tariffs on European cars and light trucks. Zero tariffs both ways.
I look forward to the 50% EU tariffs on June 1. I want to see the result. Though Trump has a habit of not following through on his tariffs, or dropping them soon after they begin.
We both know Trump will cave like a cheap folding chair on EU tariffs. But it will create lots of market opportunity with the volatility.
He is the grift that keeps on giving.
Grift that keeps on Grifting?
😉
Thank you for fighting for me Mr President🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸
You’re a billionaire? You can’t fight for yourself?
Let’s face it, we needed a long awaited financial reset.
You can keep the plates spinning only for so long.
Only I don’t think it was intended to arrive at it by Trump tariffs, but the result will be the same.
The children will survive, the boomers in their multi-million properties less so.
Those goal posts are receding at the speed of light — or rather, speed of erratic thought. Like a Doppler effect, head-spinning. The derided “properties,” however devalued, are at least concrete assets, in this whirlwind of incoherence. But by all means, place online bets going long on the US-made iphones, and $Trump tokens.
Funny that Trump seems to ignore the sales tax that are present in almost all US states. Sure they are lower than EU VAT’s but that isn’t really the point. Of course the notion that a VAT is a trade barrier is ludicrous as Mish already mentioned.
He might as well argue that higher income taxes are also a barrier, but I shouldn’t give him ideas….
The US government does not rembourse state sales taxes to companies that export products or services. VATs are on the other hand reimbursed by the respective governments to their companies when they export. The result is by reimbursing the VAT it lowers the cost of production of the exported product by the amont of the VAT. That is an advantage that the US company does not have since the US company has to incorporate state taxes into its breakeven point. Anyone who knows accounting for international operations is well aware of the effects of VATs on your bottom line. This is not an opinion and is not contested by any professional who does international business. It is an accounting fact.
All companies registered for vat reclaim it on purchases regardless of whether they export the product/service. Therefore, it’s effectively only paid by the end consumer, regardless of whether they’re domestic or international consumers.
Reclaiming vat isn’t put in place to gain an advantage over foreign companies, even if that’s a consequence in certain situations, it’s to facilitate the production of goods and services without the interference of taxation.
I don’t think the USA allow their own companies to reclaim sales tax on their own purchases but if they did it would even things up.
Stop spreading misinformation. Sales tax in the US is typically only charged to the final consumer and production inputs are for the most part exempt from sales tax in the US. As such, there is nothing to refund to US exporters in the first place!
This is the second time I’ve corrected the nonsense you keep spewing about this topic but you just keep going. Please educate yourself.
VAT and sales taxes are both charged at the very end, when the customer buys a product. There is no need for EU to “reimburse” any VAT to the exporter of its goods, nor is there any need for US to “reimburse” any sales taxes to the exporter of its goods.
So how about fixing USA’s own sales taxes (which is an absolutely mess) rather than complaining about the sales taxes in other countries which works much better.
I’m confused why you are arguing that US citizens/companies should be paying tax to EU countries to support their government expenditure.
Surely the fair thing to do is for US citizens/companies not to be paying a VAT as they are not getting a benefit from government expenditure? Which is the situation we currently have.
US citizens/companies who export do not pay VAT to the EU. The European consumer purchasing the product is who ultimately pays it.
Lawd, there is so much confusion as to how this works.
Because the EU leaders are a complete basket case – worse than our DEI states, they are thirsty for war to mask and distract their citizens from the realities of their economic condition and the deterioration of their social fabric due to following the lead of the WEF / NATO / Neocons. While they seriously believe they can defeat Russia with the help of the Brits, giving them the estimated $75 trillion in Russian natural resources and making them the leader of the free world again, they will get destroyed for the third time … and they will try to drag the US into their quagmire.
The EU is like our States that want / need SALT deductions so they can avoid addressing their pathetic tax structure that is bankrupting their states. Trump needs to tell the EU and NATO to pound sand. They need us much more than we need them. Afterall, what do they offer?
The warmongers that need to justify their existence by saying Putin will take over Europe if we don’t stop him in Ukraine fail to identify the natural resources Europe offers. They only thing Putin would gain by invading Europe would be pension obligations.
Even though the population of Europe is larger than the US, they consume less than half of what the US does, which is 25% of all the good & services consumed in the world. The world depends on selling to the US and Trump knows it, which is why he’s driving a hard bargain.
Very well stated!
This is the same logic that says the Jan 6 rioters were “entrapped”. Putin was entrapped by the bloodthirsty EU leaders into invading Ukraine. Poor Putin, always bumbling around.
You need to study the history of Ukraine, and the CIA’s involvement with the Ukrainian Nazis to start the civil war, which the Neocons turned into a proxy war to weaken Russia (using Ukrainians as cannon fodder) to pave the way for the ultimate takeover of Russia resources, which was last attempted in the late 1990’s. Search Armstrong’s site fore details – here is one, along with the book (BTW, Armstrong forecasted Ukraine would be the start of WWIII before the Civil War started in 2014) …
There is no longer many reasons for the EU to consider the U.S as a trading partner or ally.
As a direct result, there is no reason for Europe to buy U.S. LNG or petroleum products. This drives European energy consumption directly into Russias waiting arms.
China has been incentivized to discount its excess products to Europe and buy more products from Europe to absorb production formerly destined for the U.S.. All bad for the U.S.
As for European defense procurement? Why buy U.S. weaponry when they can simply ally themselves with Russia and leave trump twisting in the wind. Russia is in a far better position to grow its economy than the U.S. with trump at the helm.
Trumps antics with tariffs are irrational and destructive to the United States economy.
The EU’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is estimated to be $19.99 trillion (nominal) in 2025 or $29.18 trillion at Purchasing Power Parity (PPP), according to Wikipedia. This makes the EU the second-largest economy in the world in nominal terms, after the United States, and the third-largest at PPP, after China and the US.
People in Northren Europe are happy. US not so much (24), From a happiness pespective the US is a failed state.
https://data.worldhappiness.report/table
We’ve allowed the FED to debase our currency to the point where our manufacturing costs are one of the highest, if not the highest, in the world and now we want to punish other countries because they have not done the same. And who pays the price? Joe and Jane consumer. What a clown show.
Don’t act like the US is the only one doing this. Also, don’t act like the problem today isn’t Trump announcing a 50% tariff that starts in eight days. This is evidence of why people including Mish are saying that nobody can make tariff based plans when the Tangerine Terrorist changes his mind many times about US policy every month.
Latest News (my imagination): “Trump announced Retaliatory VAT TAXES to be added to all USA CONSUMER PURCHASES as a retaliation to the EU’s tariffs.”
That’ll do it!
Trump REALLY STICKS it to China, and other countries by taxing US!
Anyone who thinks the consumer doesn’t pay a consumer tax at the register is a certified dingus
bs. USA congress is only to make new taxes.
ps
Latest News (my imagination): .sorry i missed one
How Long is 90 Days?
Congress is no longer counting the days. We are frozen in time:
“each day for the remainder of the 119th Congress shall not constitute a calendar day”
In Congress, a Day Can Last Months if Politics Demands It – The New York Times
In normal human terms or 5D Trump/MAGA terms? If it’s the latter, it’s whatever stupid time frame Trump and MAGA say 90 days is which could be anything.
Oh look you’ve gone and upset a Trump Cult member
Depends upon which planet.
However many days Dear Leader says, yavol!
In most of these negotiations, it seems time is only a reference for another data point to be cemented into place. Once that is accomplished, they set a new date, and again it is to accomplish another data point.
The problem comes in between data points that were already agreed upon. Once some new data points get accepted, often times someone wants to change a data point earlier agreed upon. As a result we go forward a step or two, and then get grabbed and pulled back a step or two. All to meet one Countries needs over the others.
A giant “Circle Jerk” is what it has become.
Trump needs to make his demands and stick to them. If someone wants to change after the fact, the answer needs to be “No” and everyone needs to understand this. Once that’s done, we can start moving forward, and stop the tit for tat BS!!!
Until then we are chasing our tails, all of us, and all at once together…
At least 90 Mish Articles on Trump 😀
Our Dear central planner Trumpybear is measuring this in Venus days, with each Venus day lasting 243 Earth days. A day on Venus is actually longer than a year on Venus (225 Earth days).
“Big beautiful deals, out of this world actually.”
In “human days” or “dog days”?
Referring to the 200 deals in 90 days? It was a lie, plain and simple. One deal is all he could con anyone into.
My understanding is that they were not lining up to “kiss his ass” after all
Trump wants Europe to ignore the oil exportation sanctions on Russia. After all the Ruble is up > 30% since January 1, and Russia is one of his favorite countries.
Trump modeling his administration after Putin’s should be no surprise as he stated that he would be “Dictator on day one”.
So much for our alliance with Europe, NATO, Canada, Australia and the balance of the Commonwealth nations. They ae now completely free to trade with China and ignore the United States,
Tourism to the U.S. is falling hard and friends of mine from Australia have cancelled their trip. Canadian’s are selling their second homes in Florida and cross border traffic has nearly halted. I am scared to go to Canada
on venus a day is 243 earth days. so trump could still technically end the war on day one.
Other countries should out right refuse to negotiate unless congress is deeply involved with the process. The legislative branch is spineless and Trump shouldn’t even have the authority to do what he’s doing.
Did Congress ever declare war on Viet Nam?
Does the Separation of Powers, Due Process, Emoluments Clause, and the First Amendment mean anything to you? Keep the important things in focus.
The US had an undeclared naval war with France that lasted from 1798 to 1800. When Napolean took over he put a stop to it. It is called the Quasi-war. The war with the Barbary Pirates wasn’t declared either. In fact we have had many undeclared wars that Congress didn’t want to declare in the 19the and 20th centuries.
I’m surprised it took this long for a threat of tariffs to happen. But why bother with a deal that Trump can and likely will renege on at the whim of a tantrum?
The EU just needs to wait 1338 more days until the current clown in office is gone forever.
I often travel to Canada and pass customs on I-91. Prior to Covid, the lines at that crossing were often an hour long on both sides. Went by last Thursday at 10:30 AM and was the only vehicle on both sides of the border. Trump economics at work. My thought – not good.
Lines have never been as long since Covid, but never this quiet.
Last time I crossed –
Canada border guard – “are you taking anyone’s job?”
US boxer guard – “are you smuggling anything?”
I laughed both times!
We are holding off until Canada becomes the 51st state! No lines. No questions.
One thing you can say about trump is that he is a “real piece of work.”
Like a blind ALS patient’s sculpture “piece of work”