Trump vows to slap 25% tariffs on the European Union

Hind Al Soulia - Riyadh - WASHINGTON — US President Donald Trump held the first Cabinet meeting of his second term on Wednesday, where he vowed to slap 25% tariffs on the European Union and claimed the bloc was "formed to screw US."

Trump also briefly invited tech mogul Elon Musk to take the floor, who sat at the sidelines of the meeting, wearing an 'IT Support' shirt and black 'Make America Great Again' hat.

The US president vowed to slap 25% tariffs on the European Union (EU), claiming the bloc was formed to "screw the United States."

It is not the first time Trump has threatened the EU with tariffs. Last week, the Republican president said "the EU has been very unfair" to the United States, and plegded to impose tariffs on auto imports, pharmaceuticals and chips.

Speaking at the Cabinet meeting, he emphasized that the US felt taken advantage of.

"They (the EU) don't accept our cars, they don't accept essentially our farm products, they use all sorts of reasons why not, and we accept everything of them, and we have about a three hundred billion deficit with the EU," Trump said.

A European Commission spokesperson responded that “The EU will react firmly and immediately against unjustified barriers to free and fair trade, including when tariffs are used to challenge legal and non-discriminatory policies."

EU leaders have firmly rejected the tariffs in the past and vowed to fight the tariffs, if they were to be applied. When asked by a reporter what would happen if countries tried to retaliate, Trump said they can try, but claimed they wouldn't succeed.

"We are the pot of gold. We're the one that everybody wants and they can retaliate. But it cannot be a successful retaliation because we just go cold turkey. We don't buy any more. And if that happens, we win," Trump responded.

Speaking on the war in Ukraine, Trump declined to go into detail what concessions he would ask the two sides to make. However, the US president ruled out Ukraine's aspirations to join NATO.

Trump said Kyiv "could forget about" joining the military alliance. “I think that’s probably the reason the whole thing started," he added, referring to Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The US president is expected to host Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House on Friday, where they will sign a minerals deal, which allows the US access to Ukraine's minerals in return for continued support from Washington.

Trump has long complained that the United States spent too much taxpayer money to support Ukraine. “The previous administration put us in a very bad position," he said.

He believes the deal will serve as a chance for Kyiv to pay back the US, "we’ve been able to make a deal where we’re going to get the money back and a lot of money in the future."

When asked to further specify on which concessions would be agreed on, Trump gave the floor to Vice President JD Vance, who pushed back at reporting that said the US president had made concessions in talks with Putin.

"Every single time the president engages in diplomacy, you guys preemptively accuse him of conceding to Russia," Vance said. "He hasn't conceded anything to anyone. He's doing the job of a diplomat. And he is, of course, the diplomat in chief as the president of the United States."

The US president also briefly invited billionaire Elon Musk to speak at the meeting. The billionaire is not a cabinet member, but has a leading role in the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

"The overall goal here with the DOGE team is to help address the enormous deficit we simply cannot sustain as a country $2 trillion deficits," Musk said. He added that without DOGE, "America will go bankrupt."

Musk did admit that in efforts to cut government spending, DOGE may make mistakes. He cited as an example that the department accidentally canceled USAID's Ebola Prevention programs. Musk insisted that “there was no interruption” in services before the funding was restored.

Since taking office on January 20, Trump temporarily froze all foreign aid, including for efforts to combat the spread of the deadly virus. A USAID official said on Wednesday that no funds for the agency's Ebola repsonse had been released since the funding freeze.

The tech mogul also defended his "pulse check" emails, in which he requires government workers to justify their prior week’s work under penalty of termination.

He said the requirement is "not a high bar" to meet. Musk, who believes certain people on the government payroll are dead or fictional, said the emails serve as a way to check whether workers are real, alive and can "write an email." — Euronews