French President Emmanuel Macron has urged the European Union to ready its "bazooka" against Washington, escalating Paris's response to President Trump's threat last week to lift tariffs on European cars and trucks to 25 percent as soon as next week.
The Macron intervention, reported by Semafor, lands as Brussels makes what the news outlet characterized as a "final push" to settle the dispute before the higher duties take effect. The instrument Macron invoked, the bloc's anti-coercion tool, has never been deployed and would let the EU levy charges on American goods and bar U.S. companies from European government contracts.
What Brussels is weighing
Trump told reporters at the White House last week that he would raise the auto tariffs because the EU was "not — as usual, they were not adhering to the agreement" reached last summer. That deal, according to PBS NewsHour, capped levies on most European goods at 15 percent. The president did not detail the legal mechanism or explain the timing of the increase.
The Supreme Court in February ruled that much of Trump's tariff agenda was illegal, PBS reported, a backdrop against which the auto threat is now playing out.
The bazooka
The anti-coercion instrument is a rarely deployed tool that, according to Semafor, would let Brussels levy charges on American goods and block U.S. companies from government contracts. It was designed for the kind of standoff now underway: a trading partner using tariffs or other measures to pressure member states into policy changes.
Macron's call to wield the tool reflects a broader strategic shift. A Carnegie Endowment scholar quoted by Semafor said Brussels is increasingly distancing itself from Washington and prioritizing autonomy in defense and technology, even as it manages a parallel surge of inexpensive Chinese imports.
Pressure on two fronts
The China problem complicates the European posture. Semafor reported that the EU faces competing pressures, having to address an influx of inexpensive Chinese goods flooding its markets while it argues with Washington over autos.
The counterparty
The White House and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative had not publicly responded to Macron's bazooka comment by press time, and today's reporting carried no on-the-record administration reaction; the framing in this account draws on wire and public-broadcasting accounts that did not include a U.S. rebuttal.
Semafor characterized the EU's effort as a "final push" to resolve the trade differences before the higher duties take effect — the near-term inflection that will test whether Macron's bazooka stays in its case.