The European Union (EU) slapped revenge tariffs on iconic US products including bourbon, jeans and motorcycles today in its opening salvo in a trade war with President Donald Trump.
The tariffs, which took effect at midnight Thursday, according to the EU’s official journal, will further fuel jitters on world stock markets that are already alarmed by trade tensions between the United States and China.
Customs agents across the Europe’s colossal market of 500 million people will now impose the duty, hiking prices on US-made products in supermarkets and across factory floors.
Brussels imposed the raft of duties on US products worth 2.8 billion Euros in a tit-for-tat response to Trump’s decision to slap stiff tariffs on European steel and aluminium exports.
According to AFP, EU Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom said this week that the 28-nation bloc was “left with no other choice” but to impose tariffs of its own after the “unilateral and unjustified decision of the US.”
Together with US tariffs against Mexico and Canada, the trade battles have raised the spectre of a global trade war, spooking financial markets that fear major consequences to the global economy.
