U.S. President Donald Trump labeled the European Union as smaller, but possibly as bad as China on trade during an interview with Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo on Sunday.
Bartiromo asked President Trump if the U.S. should be banding with allies like the European Union to try to “stop China from stealing from” the U.S.
“The European Union is possibly as bad as China, just smaller,” President Trump replied to Bartiromo. “It’s terrible what they do to us.”
“European Union, take a look at the car situation,” he went on. “They send their Mercedes in, we can’t send our cars in.”
“Look what they do to our farmers,” Trump urged. “They don’t want our farm products. Now in all fairness they have their farmers. So they want to protect their farmers. But we don’t protect ours and they protect theirs.”
“The European Union last year made, if you look at a trade surplus, which I think is a very important thing, a hundred and fifty one billion dollars,” emphasized Trump.
Trump went on to say “we also love the European Union” and point out that his parents were born within the area now encompassed by the European Union, before those countries were a part of the European Union. “I love those countries,” said Trump, naming Germany and Scotland. “They’re still hangin in there, right? We’ll see what happens with Brexit,” he said.
“But they treat us very badly. They treat us very unfairly,” Trump said qualifying his remarks. “They made last year 151 billion dollars in trade surplus. In other words, we had a deficit with the European Union. On top of that we spend a fortune on NATO to protect them.
Top German auto makers have called for an end all tariffs on automobiles, both the 10 percent tariffs the European Union imposes on autos from the U.S. and other countries and the 2.5 percent that the U.S. currently imposes on EU vehicle exports to the U.S.
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