Trump announces 20% tariff hike for EU; Dutch businesses, MP's concerned

The United States is introducing a 20 percent import duty on all products from the European Union, president Donald Trump announced on Wednesday. The EU is already working on countermeasures if further negotiations with Washington come to nothing, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said. Dutch businesses and parliamentarians are very concerned. A trade war is bad for everyone, various MPs said.

Trump announced a minimum duty of 10 percent on imports to the US for all countries worldwide. For the EU, that is double. For several other countries, the percentage is considerably higher. Vietnam, for example, is looking at 46 percent. The minimum duty takes effect on Sunday, the rest on Wednesday. The previously introduced tariffs on steel and aluminum will remain in effect and will not increase.

Trump says he is introducing these import tariffs because, according to him, other countries are taxing American products.

Dutch employers’ organization VNO-NCW called Trump’s announcement a “far-reaching step towards an escalating trade war” in a statement to the news wire ANP. The organization also called the import duties counterproductive, given how interconnected the production chains between the EU and the U.S. are. “At the same time, the EU cannot let the proposed American import duties pass unanswered.”

The VNO-NCW expects the tariff hike will have a major impact on international trade. “We are in close contact with our members and the Dutch government about this.”

Entrepreneurs’ organization evofenedex called the levies “regrettable, although they are also in line with expectations,” general manager Bart Jan Koopman said in a written statement. “This was exactly the scenario we feared earlier. The actual damage remains difficult to predict, but the consequences in global supply chains will be major.”

According to evofenedex, which represents the trade and logistics interests of thousands of companies in the Netherlands, a strong European response is vital for normalizing trade relations. “At the same time, this situation offers opportunities to strengthen and explore new markets. Dutch companies are resilient - let’s use that strength.”

Dutch parliamentarians stressed that nobody benefits from a trade war. “A trade war only has losers, because it leads to a rise in prices on both sides,” GroenLinks-PvdA leader Frans Timmermans said on the talk show Bar Laat.

VVD leader Dilan Yeşilgöz thinks that the import tariffs will be “far from liberating,” as Trump claimed they would be. A trade war is bad for everyone, she said on X. “That is harmful to companies and consumers, in Europe but also in the U.S. itself.”

The Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis (CPB) thinks the impact of the tariff hike will be manageable “if it remains here,” economist Debby Lanser of the agency told ANP in an initial response. She is worried that the tariff hike will damage confidence, creating a vicious cycle with neither consumers nor companies daring to spend. The consequences will then be greater, she said.

At the end of November, the CPB made a calculation based on a general import tariff of 10 percent, combined with a 100 percent levy on vehicles and a 60 percent tariff on all Chinese goods. The percentages are now different. But in that scenario, Dutch imports and exports would fall by approximately 1 percent.

Trump wants the import duties to make it more attractive to produce in the U.S. According to him, America has allowed too many factories to move abroad in recent decades. He wants to remedy that by making products from abroad much more expensive.

Economists dispute that Trump’s strategy will benefit the U.S., NOS reports. They fear that, instead, his tariff hikes will plunge the U.S. into a recession that could drag down world trade. When Trump hiked tariffs in his first term as president, the costs of tariffs on steel, for example, mainly ended up with American car buyers.

Several countries are now responding to American protectionism by increasing their own import duties. The EU is also prepared to respond with countermeasures if negotiations with Washington fail, European Commission Ursula von der Leyen said, according to Reuters.

“We are already finalizing the first package of countermesures in response to tariffs on steel,” Von der Leyen said. “And we're now preparing for further countermeasures to protect our interests and our businesses if negotiations fail.”