EU must offer “firm” and “united” response to Trump tariff threats, says Poland’s Tusk

Feb 3, 2025 | Business, Defence, Featured, Politics

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Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and is published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk has called on Europe to stand “united” in offering a “clear, friendly, but firm” response to President Donald Trump’s threats to introduce tariffs on products from the European Union. However, he has also called for the EU to maintain the “best possible relations with the United States”.

Tusk, whose country currently holds the EU’s rotating six-month presidency, was speaking in Brussels on Monday amid an informal summit of EU leaders.

“We must be able to take care of our relations with the US, but we must also have a sense of our own dignity and strength,” said the PM. “Europe must show a lot of common sense, calmness, responsibility…We must without doubt be unquestionably united.”

Tusk, who was president of the European Council during Trump’s first term, emphasised that the EU should “do everything possible to avoid a quarrel between allies”, especially given current threats from Russia and China.

“But we must also say loudly and clearly that starting some kind of tariff or trade wars is a complete mistake,” he added. “I hope that such a clear, friendly, but firm European position will reach the American administration.”

Last week, Trump told reporters at a briefing in the Oval Office that he would “absolutely, absolutely” seek to impose tariffs on the EU, as he has already done with Canada, Mexico and China.

“The European Union has treated us so terribly,” said Trump, who did not specify which goods may be affected but promised to “do something substantial”, reports Politico Europe.

 

Speaking today, the US president confirmed that tariffs on the EU could happen “pretty soon”.

“They don’t take our cars, they don’t take our farm products, they take almost nothing and we take everything from them. Millions of cars, tremendous amounts of food and farm products,” he said, quoted by the BBC.

In 2022, the US exported $592 billion worth of goods and services to the EU while importing $723.3 billion from the EU, according to data from the Office of the United States Trade Representative, which is part of the Executive Office of the President.

On Sunday, a European Commission spokesman said that “the EU will respond firmly to any trading partner that unfairly or arbitrarily imposes tariffs on EU goods”. But he warned that “tariffs are hurtful to all sides…creating unnecessary economic disruption and driving inflation”.

In his remarks today, Tusk also said that he would try to “convince all European leaders” against the idea of “limiting or eliminating the spending of European money on American weapons”.

This is not about “sucking up to someone in Washington”, said the Polish prime minister, but about “finally taking security seriously as our top priority”.

“American weapons and the best possible relations with the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and Norway – when it comes to defence – must be at the centre of our attention,” he added.

Trump has regularly criticised NATO countries in Europe for failing to spend enough on their defence, accusing them of “freeriding” on US military power. However, Poland itself recently raised its defence budget to the highest relative level in NATO, at over 4.12% of GDP last year and 4.7% this year.


Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Main image credit: European Council/Flickr (under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

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