“This decision throws a spanner in the works of the global economy,” the post read. “It would have been smart if the EU Commission had initiated a reduction of the higher European car tariffs in advance. Now, the response needed above all is an offer of talks.”
European Parliament lawmaker Auke Zijlstra, a member of the Netherlands’ far-right Freedom Party, blamed the EU for the dispute.
In a post on X he argued that it is an “uncomfortable truth” that the EU is levying tariffs on goods coming into the bloc and said free trade was an illusion because Europe applied “general import tariffs for the outside world … Hypocrisy is a word of European origin.”
For its part, France’s National Rally, which is currently focusing most of its public statements on attacking party figurehead Marine Le Pen’s embezzlement conviction, suggested the Trump tariffs weren’t particularly novel.
“Mr. Obama, who appeared to be a nice person, used against France U.S. extraterritorial laws for example by extorting €10 billion to [French bank] BNP Paribas,” lawmaker Jean-Philippe Tanguy told French radio RMC.
Tanguy said it was important for Europe to respond with a targeted response, but said the Commission would be “stupid” to react to the dispute by imposing tariffs on U.S. bourbon as it did in 2017.
“The European Union, we have to admit, is stupid in most measures it adopts,” he added.
