EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen delivered a keynote speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, where she spoke of a “new era of rough geostrategic competition”. In this era, major economic powers would compete with each other for resources, technologies, and trade routes.
She analyzed what homework Europe needed to do to be able to succeed in this competition, avoiding any mention of Donald Trump in her speech.
Von der Leyen referred to the close economic interdependence with the US, citing that European companies in the US employed 3.5 million Americans, production lines stretched across the Atlantic, and two-thirds of US foreign investments were made in Europe. The US provided half of Europe’s liquefied natural gas imports, with a trade volume of 1.5 billion euros a year, a third of the global trade. “A lot is at stake for both sides”, she said. They wanted to sit down with the new government early on and discuss common interests – without giving up their own values.
On Tuesday, the US President announced he would impose tariffs on the European Union. Trump had previously urged the EU to import more oil and gas from the US, shortly before his inauguration.
“‘Otherwise, there will be tariffs without end!!'”, he wrote on his online platform Truth Social.
There had already been a heated trade dispute between the US and the EU during Trump’s first term in office. In 2018, Trump had introduced special tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, and the EU retaliated with tariffs on US products like bourbon whiskey, Harley-Davidson motorcycles, and jeans.