Kim Mackrael
Appearances
WSJ What’s News
Trump’s Economic Messaging Spooks CEOs. Why Are They Keeping Quiet?
The tariffs that they've talked about would basically come into effect in two sets. The first set would come April 1st and the next would come in mid-April.
WSJ What’s News
Trump’s Economic Messaging Spooks CEOs. Why Are They Keeping Quiet?
Worth flagging that for all of this, the EU has really emphasized the idea that if there was any way of coming to a deal with the US to avert the steel and aluminum tariffs that the US imposed, they could not impose these retaliatory tariffs or they could take them away later on.
WSJ What’s News
Trump’s Economic Messaging Spooks CEOs. Why Are They Keeping Quiet?
The EU has tried in producing this list to come up with products that will have a maximum influence and potentially maximum pain for the United States while minimizing the impact and the pain for Europeans. And so a lot of them focus on, in some cases, Republican states, in some cases, products that they think that Europeans can find elsewhere from other countries.
WSJ What’s News
Trump’s Economic Messaging Spooks CEOs. Why Are They Keeping Quiet?
You mentioned whiskey, motorcycles, motorboats. We've got cranberries, garden umbrellas, tablecloths, handkerchiefs, soybeans, which is on the list of potential tariffs. They're also a major agricultural export to the EU from Louisiana, which also happens to be the home state of House Speaker Mike Johnson. You can see a little bit of an attempt by the EU to make some deliberate choices there.
WSJ What’s News
Trump’s Economic Messaging Spooks CEOs. Why Are They Keeping Quiet?
Thank you, Kim. Thank you.
WSJ What’s News
Bonds Sell Off as New U.S. Tariffs Upend Global Trade
No, I think that's right. The US is an extremely important export market for Europe. And in Europe's case, it's 20% across the board tariffs, as well as the auto tariffs of 25%, the steel and aluminum tariffs of 25%. The threat of future tariffs, that's a huge threat to the outlook for Europe.
WSJ What’s News
Bonds Sell Off as New U.S. Tariffs Upend Global Trade
Yeah. And pharmaceutical tariffs for Europe would hit Ireland very hard. Denmark is a major pharmaceutical hub for Europe. There's the potential for even more hits to the economy that could be coming.
WSJ What’s News
Bonds Sell Off as New U.S. Tariffs Upend Global Trade
The EU is really trying to pursue a two-pronged path in responding to Trump's tariffs. Their goal is to have negotiations and come up with some sort of deal that they hope would be beneficial for both the US and the EU. At the same time, the feeling is that you're not going to make much progress on negotiations if you don't come at it from a strong position.
WSJ What’s News
Bonds Sell Off as New U.S. Tariffs Upend Global Trade
And the view among EU officials is you need to have a stick waiting. So there'll be a vote today to approve a set of tariffs on specific US products. And if that vote is approved, which is quite likely, then they would go into effect next week.
WSJ What’s News
Bonds Sell Off as New U.S. Tariffs Upend Global Trade
Coming up with an agreement on which American products to go after is not the easiest thing for the European Union, which has 27 member countries, all sorts of different interests that they have to get everybody basically on board for something that in some cases might cause some pain. So they work to narrow down a list of products to go after. all sorts of iconic American products.
WSJ What’s News
Bonds Sell Off as New U.S. Tariffs Upend Global Trade
In some cases, we've got peanut butter, chewing gum is actually on the list. So chewing gum will face a European tariff coming soon, likely. We've got boats, motorcycles, Harley Davidson would be affected by that one. Also interesting in this list is what they decided to spare. So we've got whiskey was on an original potential hit list for European tariffs that was taken off.
WSJ What’s News
Bonds Sell Off as New U.S. Tariffs Upend Global Trade
During the process, same for American wines. And those are interesting because after the EU initially started talking about its retaliation about a month ago, President Trump responded very quickly with a threat of a potential 200% tariff on European alcohols, threatening specifically champagne, but saying that that could apply to other alcoholic beverages as well.
WSJ What’s News
Bonds Sell Off as New U.S. Tariffs Upend Global Trade
That would be absolutely devastating for the wine and spirits industry in Europe. You can see some strategizing going on there where you still are hitting quite a lot of American products, but there's some care being taken to not overly antagonize.