Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. Trade tensions between the United States and the European Union of resurfaced since President Trump said he would raise the tariffs on e U cars and trucks to twenty five percent. The European Commission President Ursla Vonderlon says the e is ready for all
scenarios if Washington breaks its trade agreements. Truck last summer, they saw ahead of a meeting of G seven trade ministers happening in Paris this morning, joining us in our Brussels studio to discuss as the US ambassadors the opinion Andrew Poster, good morning, ambassador. Great to have you back with us. Good morning on Bloomberg Radio. Can you explain the route of this problem? President Trump says he wants to increase these levees because the EU isn't complying with the deal.
What's the issue, so Beck.
In March of twenty twenty five, the President took auto turifs up to twenty five percent. After a bunch of back and forth communications between President Vonderline and President Trump, we reached an agreement in Turnbury last year, we would reduce our tariffs to fifteen percent and the EU would reduce.
Their tariffs to zero.
We reduced our tariffs on August first of last year, that's nine months ago on autos, and to date we haven't seen the EU reduced a single tariff. Not only haven't they reduced tariffs, but when the Parliament came forward after many delays and voted to approve the deal, they tried to change the deal. They want to add four or five amendments to the deal which completely change it.
They want to renegotiate. So the President said, look, after nine months of you enjoying the benefits of this deal and dragging your feet on getting us the benefits, times up, We're not going to put up with this. You need to get this thing done. You need to get it done the way we agreed to it, the way President Vanderline and I agreed to it. And if you can't get it done, then we're going to take tariffs back up and we're going to take back take the tariff
up on notice. Now it hasn't happened yet, but he's notified Europe that it will happen.
The European Union would argue that this is the system by which the legislation has to be passed that it has to go through the legislative process. Was it necessary to threaten tariffs in order to try to push this through?
So two things. One is the Parliament could have approved this a long time ago. This is something that was delayed. They delayed the vote, they delayed the committee votes. It was stalled for a long time, and when they finally pass it, they want to amend the deal. So when you're saying it's our legislative process, well, the legislative process was to drag your feed, continue hearings, continue votes, not have them, and then change the deal once you do
have a vote. Then I would say that that's not really a very fair legislative process.
They did also delay it because if i'm there were also fresh threats of tariffs coming from the United States as well, which was one of the key delays. But the last time that we spoke, you were on your way to the planary session in Strasbourg to talk to MEPs about their concerns. Did that not come to the right resolution? Is that why we're in the situation wherein.
I think Berd Longey did a great job getting this bill through the Parliament. I think there were a lot of people opposed to the deal and he had to make some concessions to get it approved in parliament.
I think.
Chairman Webber has done a great job with the EPP. I think there are people who are sincerely interested in getting this deal approved, but it did get delayed continuously. The United States has not increased tariffs. That's just not true. We have not increased to threaten too well, it's a big difference between threatening to do something and doing it since the day that we since August first of last year, tariffs on automobiles have been fifteen percent. Nobody's changed that.
And when it did get when they do finally get it through the parliament, I think everybody realizes that they want to renegotiate the deal. I quite honestly, in the United States side, there's no interest in renegotiating the deal.
We have a deal, and as many in the EU.
This isn't just the United States saying this, but many people in the European Union have been saying a deal is a deal, we need to approve this. Well, we agree a deal is a deal. We need to approve this, so let's get it approved.
What conversations have you been having this week then, and what conversations are you having now with the EU? Do you think that this you know, as you say times up, do you think that that message is getting across Do you think that that is going to speed things up?
Well? I think rather than talking about conversations I have with various EU officials, some of who are favorably disposed towards our position, some of them are aggressively not favorably disposed our position. I think if you look at the public statements, you can see that there are divisions within the EU as to whether their support for doing this deal or opposition to it. But I believe that there is more support than there is oppositions, So I believe we're going to get this deal done.
Look, this deal is part of really getting.
The the new EU US relationship where it needs to be. We need to get certainty in our trade relationship. Businesses need that, countries need that. That will lead to greater prosperity for both the EU and the US. And it actually says that in the Framework Trade Agreement we've got the critical Minerals deal, which we now have a memorandum of understanding on that. Commissioner Chefkevich and Secretary Rubio signed.
It was last week or the week before. We're trying to get Europe on board, and I think we will come to a Pax Silica agreement with the EU, which will help bring the EU more aggressively into the AI economy, along with as a partner with the United States. So these are all efforts to try and bring the two economies together, and I think we'll both be more prosperous if we can approve these agreements, and I think we
will approve them. It's just going through this process is not easy, and I think both sides doing the best it can. But nine months of you got to deal, we got nothing isn't going to work.
Where do you see the I suppose the zone for negotiations. Now, then what are the things because I mean the clauses that the European Parliament added, including you know that it would only the deal would only come into force when the US held a bit side of the bargain. So I'm sure you agree with that if you're talking about a deal being a deal.
We've been holding up our side of the bargram since last fall, so.
That's not an issue. The other the other key condition was we should be.
We should be making that condition with I mean but that that I guess, I guess really we are. You don't have a deal until both people comply. A deal isn't you do what you promise and and we'll do ours later. A deal is you do what you promise we'll do would we promise? Well, okay, we're waiting.
Sure, but I'm trying to identify upos. What is it exactly that that was in the European Parliament changes that that is now an issue given that you've been talking to the European Parliament about this.
Well, the things that are an issue are the things that weren't in the deal that was agreed to a Turnbury and that you know, really great people on the on the EU side, big advocates for the European Union, Bjorn Seabird morro Chef negotiated this against people from the US who are the same Jamison Greer, our ambassador, and
Howard Lutnik, our Secretary of Commerce. These for individuals, with help from others, put what Trump and Wonderline agreed to in writing, and we did what we said we would do. It's time for Europe to do what it said it would do and stop with the amendments.
Already, Okay, I suppose. In the meantime, though, what has happened is the US led war in Iran, and many European countries have been critical of that war. Also, what sort of conversations have been having with counterparts and what are those conversations been like since the start of the war, given the economic, the inflationary, the growth impact that is having now on European countries.
So my conversations with the people in the the ones who need a conversation, I think some people understood this
without me having to say it. But President Trump, Secretary Rubio has been very clear and President Trump as as well, that the United States believes that Iran was building up a significant resource or reserves of missiles, including long range missiles and drones, so that if anybody tried to stop their nuclear weapons program with which they were proceeding, if anybody tried to stop it, they would disrupt the world economy by tacking their neighbors in the Middle East, by
shutting down the Strait of Hormuz, and doing whatever they could to prevent the world from restricting their ability to get a nuclear weapon. Now, President Trump once he had that knowledge, could could have done what other presidents and other leaders in other countries have done, which has kicked the ball down the road, or kick the can down the road and say, you know, let the next guy deal with this. Because there was no political benefit to
President Trump doing what he did. The Democrats aren't going to support him no matter what he does, so that wasn't going to help. But his own party wasn't completely supportive of the President taking this move, so and with elections coming up in November, there was no political benefits. So you know, if he did this, he had a very sincere belief that this was absolutely the right thing to do, not only for the United States, but for
world peace. You cannot let this crazy theocratic regime get a nuclear weapon.
It would be a complete disasswer.
So consequences of this as well, with energy prices that much higher, and so you know, this is something that obviously European countries are feeling very keenly. I'm wondering, do you have a sense that relations with some of those countries in the EU are irreparably damaged? Can there be an improvements?
No, I don't think. I don't think relations are irreparably damaged.
I think.
To get back to what I'm talking to people in the EU about, once you understand why President Trump did this and the importance of his doing it, and the really the decision being that this was absolutely what was
the right thing to do. When you find countries where we've spent really billions, if not trillions of dollars defending we've had military bases in place, even since the fall of the Soviet Union, where we really didn't need to have those bases, We've continued to spend American taxpayer dollars
on defense of Europe. You know, we went in the past one hundred and twenty years, We've been to Europe twice to free it from from aggressive, aggressive, militaristic people, you know, and then we can't use our bases, we can't fly over countries to do what President Trump believed was the right thing to do in with respect to Iran, and I think was unquestionably the right thing to do.
It is it will, it is having an effect on prices, but look, this is nothing compared to what would have happened if a long range ballistic missile carrying a nuclear weapon had headed off towards Rome or Cyprus, or Berlin or Tel Aviv.
I mean this is we know there was no indications that that was imminent either.
Well, we know they had the ballistic missiles, we know they've been threatening to do it. We know they sent a missile, we know they attacked Cyprus. So I mean, so there are a lot of things we do know.
You can't. You know, we don't. But in nineteen thirty five.
If they if we had stopped Adolf Hitler, everybody would have claimed we don't know what would have happened if we if we hadn't stopped him.
Well, the same thing here. We don't know what would have happened.
You'll never know what would have happened, but we do have evidence as to what could have happened.
All right, good to have you with you. I'm Bossdor, Thank you very much for being my pleasure in studio. Andrew Poster there, US Ambassador to the European Union, joining us in the Brussels Radio studio.