As soon as the news arrived that President Donald Trump would impose 10 percent tariffs on the rest of the world, it was that time again. On Saturday, Trump announced that he had decided to increase the tariff to 15 percent. Both announcements came after the Supreme Court announced Friday that the president’s previous tariff order was invalid.
Criticism of Trump now comes from several quarters.
– To be completely honest, it’s a real mess, says Itsunori Onodera, former defense minister and now chairman of the steering group of Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP).
Although the tariff surcharge is presented as a global measure, it varies depending on what agreements different countries have entered into with the United States in the past. A compilation prepared by the New York Times shows that in Japan, for example, the situation remains unchanged, while Argentina, Colombia and Australia, for example, now receive a higher tariff rate.
At the same time, the Australian government announces that it is now considering “all possible measures”. In a statement, the country’s Commerce Secretary Don Farrell wrote that it was “working with the embassy in Washington to assess the impact and has continually spoken out against these unfair tariffs.”
The EU has already announced that a meeting in the EU Parliament’s Trade Committee will take place on Monday to assess the situation. French Trade Minister Nicolas Forissier says in an interview with the Financial Times that the EU has the “necessary tools” to take action against the US.
The French side therefore wants to examine various countermeasures, one of which could be the so-called bazooka. It can be described as a kind of anti-coercive tool that makes it possible to act in various ways against a country that is considered harmful to the EU economy.
– We can no longer be naive. We have to use all our tools and not just talk about them, says Forissier in the interview.
