President elect Trump made a warning on Friday to that he intends to impose tariffs on the European Union (EU) unless the EU purchases significant amounts of American oil and gas in order to compensate for its growing imbalance with the United States.
However, the European Union purchases the majority of the oil and gas produced in the United States, and there are no extra volumes available unless either the United States raises its production or the volumes are rerouted through Asia.
“I told the European Union that they must make up their tremendous deficit with the United States by the large scale purchase of our oil and gas. Otherwise, it is TARIFFS all the way!!!” Trump posted on his Truth Social account.
According to the news service, which cited data from the statistics office Eurostat, the United States is responsible for 47 percent of the gas imports that are made by the European Union.
Additionally, oil imports from the United States accounted for 17 percent of the EU’s supply during the first quarter of 2024.
According to Eurostat data, the United States had a surplus of $108 billion in service in 2023, whereas the United States had a goods trade deficit with the European Union of 161.9 billion dollars in 2023, as reported by Reuters.
Donald Trump has stated that he considers the possibility of tariffs to be an important instrument for negotiation.
In the past, he promised to impose tariffs of 25 percent on the United States’ neighbors, Mexico and Canada, in order to impose stronger border security.
Additionally, he threatened to impose an additional 10 percent tariff on China in order to impose maximum punishments for individual drug traffickers.
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