Donald Trump has claimed the European Union was invented to “screw” the US during a meeting in which he made clear that Europe would be responsible for Ukraine’s security after a peace settlement.
Speaking during his first cabinet meeting, Mr Trump announced that Washington would strike the EU with tariffs in the region of 25 per cent, a decision he had hinted at in the past few months.
“We’ll be announcing it very soon, and it’ll be 25 per cent generally speaking, and that’ll be on cars and all other things,” he said.
“Let’s be honest, the European Union was formed in order to screw the United States. That’s the purpose of it, and they’ve done a good job of it.”
Sweeping tariffs imposed on Canada and Mexico will be delayed until early April, Mr Trump said. This suggests that a White House deadline for the countries to secure their borders and halt the flow of opioids into the US has been extended.
Asked if he expects the EU to retaliate with tariffs of their own, he said: “They can retaliate, but it cannot be a successful retaliation, because we just go cold turkey. We don’t buy anymore. And if that happens, we win.”
Mr Trump also discussed a future peace settlement in Ukraine after Washington and Kyiv made a step towards repairing broken relations with a minerals deal agreed yesterday.
Asked about the possibility of the US providing security guarantees in the event of a peace settlement between Kyiv and Moscow, the president made clear that responsibility would lie with Europe, not the US.
“I’m not going to make security guarantees beyond very much – we’re going to have Europe do that because we’re talking about Europe [who] is their next door neighbour,” Mr Trump said.
“But we’re going to make sure everything goes well, and as you know we’ll be really partnering with Ukraine in terms of rare earth. We very much need rare earth – they have great rare earth.”
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky today confirmed reports that no US security guarantees were included in the preliminary minerals deal which has been struck with Washington.
Mr Zelensky is due to visit Mr Trump on Friday, where he hopes to iron out possible discrepancies on the “broader vision” of the countries’ cooperation.
The current draft does not portray Ukraine as a debtor that will have to pay back hundreds of billions of dollars for past military assistance, Mr Zelensky said.
“This agreement could be part of future security guarantees… an agreement is an agreement, but we need to understand the broader vision,” he added in Kyiv.
