EU may set sights on bourbon and motorcycles if Donald Trump starts tariff war

Political body draws up list of American products to target if incoming US president imposes trade taxes on European imports

American bourbon and motorcycles could be hit with tariffs if Donald Trump starts a trade war with the European Union.
The European Commission has already set up a dedicated “Trump taskforce” and drawn up a list of imported products to target if Mr Trump carries out his threat to impose trade taxes on European imports.
The products, such as Kentucky bourbon and motorcycles, come from states identified as potentially being vulnerable to losing their Republican representatives in the 2026 midterm elections. Brussels hopes the congressmen affected will put Mr Trump under pressure to ditch the tariffs.
Mr Trump, who has derided the EU as a “mini-China”, has threatened all foreign imports with a tariff of 10-20 per cent and Chinese imports with a 60 per cent tax.
There are European fears that the EU could be flooded with displaced Chinese goods priced out of the US market if the tariffs are imposed on Beijing.
“We don’t want to have a trade war. But we can’t be bullied,” an EU diplomat told The Telegraph at the European Political Community summit in Budapest, Hungary.
Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, said: “If there are challenges ahead of us, no member state on its own is able to manage them, but standing together as 27, as a European Union, gives us a lot of power.”
Emmanuel Macron, the French president, told his fellow leaders: “He is American. He will defend American interests.
“We have to be prepared to defend the interest of Europeans. That is our question. That has to be our priority.”
Simon Harris, Ireland’s Taoiseach, told reporters in Budapest: “The risk of a transatlantic trade shock has now increased. I think that is just a fact.”
He added: “President Trump is a businessman. He is somewhat transactional. I think he will understand that the relationship in terms of trade is a two-way relationship and the relationship in terms of jobs is a two-way relationship.”
The United States was the largest market for EU exports of goods, at 19.7 per cent, in 2023. The US is the EU’s second-largest trading partner for imports.
Putting goods and services together, EU-US trade was worth $1.3 trillion (£1 trillion) in 2022. Mr Trump believes the EU runs a huge trade surplus with the US, which it uses to pay for its social policies while freeloading on defence by relying on Washington for its security.
“To me, the most beautiful word in the dictionary is ‘tariff’,” Mr Trump said at the Chicago Economic Club last month. “It’s my favourite word.”
The UK is also at risk of being hit by Mr Trump’s blanket tariff.
Sir Julian King, the former ambassador to France and the UK’s last EU commissioner before Brexit, said Mr Trump would try to sow discord between the UK and EU.
“There’ll be plenty of talk about whether the UK cut some kind of special deal or ‘halfway house’ on tariffs, or even get a wider trade deal,” he told The Telegraph.
“But we’d do well to remember he treats international relations, especially trade, like a giant Squid Game: he’s waiting for the other players to take each other out, to his benefit.”
Olaf Scholz, the German chancellor, missed the meeting of the European Political Community in Budapest on Thursday as he stayed in Berlin to try to secure the support of the opposition CDU for key policies that are still to pass through the German parliament.
He later attended a dinner in the Hungarian capital for EU leaders.
Meanwhile, the CDU has suggested that it would pursue a free trade deal with Washington if it were to win a snap election.
Carsten Linnemann, the general secretary of the CDU, said that he could “well imagine” that Friedrich Merz, the leader of the CDU, and Mrs Von der Leyen would work on a free trade deal with Mr Trump.
After Mr Trump’s victory, Mrs Von der Leyen sent the president-elect a coded warning that the tariffs would also hurt the US economy.
“Millions of jobs and billions in trade and investment on each side of the Atlantic depend on the dynamism and stability of our economic relationship,” she said.
On Thursday, she said she would look forward to “strengthening” the transatlantic relationship.
“I think it is very important that we analyse together what our shared interests are,” she said.
Mr Macron called for Europe to do more together on security, after fears that Mr Trump would cut off US aid and weapons to Ukraine.
“Do we want to read the history written by others – the wars launched by Vladimir Putin, the US election, China’s technological or trade choices,” Mr Macron asked. “Or do we want to write our own history? I think we have the strength to write it.”
EU leaders will discuss Mr Trump’s election victory and the transatlantic relationship at a dinner in the Ferenc Puskás football stadium in the Hungarian capital on Thursday night before more summit talks on Friday.
The dinner is after the European Political Community, which involves about 50 EU and non-EU leaders, including Sir Keir Starmer, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the Turkish president, and Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president.