The European Union has pushed back against President Donald Trump’s latest suggestion that he will impose a 50% import tariff on all E.U. goods, warning that trans-Atlantic trade must be built on “respect, not threats.”

The rebuke came after Trump said in a Friday post on his Truth Social platform that trade negotiations with Brussels were “going nowhere” and suggested he would slap a 50% blanket duty on all European goods entering the U.S. starting June 1.

But on Sunday, Trump announced that the new date for the tariff to go into effect would be July 9, after he said Ursula Von Der Leyden — president of the European Commission — called him and requested he push back the date.

It was just the latest bellicose remark from Trump and came amid a broader souring of relations between the two global powers that has seen months of distrust and economic sparring.

The E.U., home to nearly 450 million people, is the world’s largest trading bloc and one of Washington’s top commercial partners. It exported more than $600 billion in goods to the U.S. last year while importing goods worth around $370 billion.

Trump, pictured in Switzerland in 2020 with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, has long held the view that the E.U. takes advantage of America. Evan Vucci / AP file

Trump’s latest broadside follows his April 2 “Liberation Day” announcement of a 39% tariff on European goods, an idea he later walked back before he changed course again Friday with an even tougher stance.

Stephen Moore, a former economic adviser to Trump, told the BBC that his former boss was expressing his frustration with the E.U.

“I think he was hoping that by now we would have the E.U. coming with some kind of deal on the table, and so far that hasn’t come,” he said, calling the 50% import tariffs a “shot at the bow.”

E.U. Trade Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič said late Friday that “E.U.-U.S. trade is unmatched & must be guided by mutual respect, not threats,” and that the bloc remains committed to securing “a deal that works for both,” following a call with U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.

While the E.U.’s response signals a willingness to negotiate, discord has deepened between the bloc and its longtime trans-Atlantic ally over a return to the combative stance Trump took during his first administration, when he flew in the face of decades of cooperation and cast the E.U. as an economic rival.

In 2018, Trump said “nobody treats us much worse than the European Union” and argued the bloc was designed to exploit the U.S. He repeated that claim this year, describing the E.U. as being “formed in order to screw the United States.”

While the ideological architects of Trump’s first administration such as Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro have also gone on record criticizing the union, many in Trump’s current inner circle have shared those sentiments.

Elon Musk appeared at a rally for the far-right Alternative for Germany party before the 2025 German elections. Hendrik Schmidt / dpa / picture alliance via Getty Images

Vice President J.D. Vance lashed out in February at European leaders at a security conference in Munich over issues ranging from free speech to migration and defense, dealing a sucker punch to the European view of America as a steadfast cultural ally.

“The threat that I worry the most about vis-à-vis Europe,” Vance said, “is the threat from within — the retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values, values shared with the United States of America.”

That came after Elon Musk — the world’s richest man, who also served as Trump’s close adviser earlier in his second term — threw his support behind Germany’s far-right Alternative for Germany party, which has called for Germany to leave the E.U.

Underlying much of the second Trump administration’s animosity toward Europe has been security funding, most prominently over the war in Ukraine.

While the administration’s view of the war in Ukraine has since softened, Vance has repeatedly opposed sending military aid to Kyiv, saying in February that “I don’t really care what happens to Ukraine one way or another.”

And in a Signal conversation between senior administration officials leaked in March, the vice president initially resisted U.S. strikes in Yemen, arguing he didn’t want to “bail Europe out,” while Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth warned that Europe was treating America like a “sucker” by relying on it for defense.

While Šefčovič’s call for a “deal that works for both” reflects the E.U.’s characteristically restrained response to the Trump administration’s jabs, Europe has been bracing itself for months for the possibility of a more distant economic relationship with the U.S. too.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy shows the leaders of France, Germany, Poland and the U.K. a memorial to fallen soldiers in Kyiv earlier this month. Evgeniy Maloletka / AP

Earlier this month, Šefčovič said the bloc preferred to negotiate, “but not at any cost,” before announcing more than $100 billion worth of possible retaliatory tariffs on U.S. goods the following day.

Europe also appears to be preparing for a future without America’s guarantee of European security against Russia. Germany this week deployed a permanent military brigade beyond its borders for the first time since the end of World War II.

A brewing trade war with the bloc throws into relief the position of Britain, which voted to leave the E.U. in 2016, but recently signed a trade deal with Europe and an economic deal with the U.S.

London appears to have sidestepped the steepest tariffs after Trump agreed last month to hold the levy on British goods at 10%, but the U.K. must now walk a delicate line: maintaining its “special relationship” with Washington while seeking closer alignment with its largest trading partner in Brussels.

But with tensions rising across the Atlantic, even allies risk being caught in the crossfire. The E.U. — a geopolitical heavyweight in its own right — is unlikely to take hefty U.S. tariffs lying down without making moves of its own.

BRUSSELS — A rare rebuke of Israel by Germany this week underscored Europe’s growing willingness to pressure the Netanyahu government over its siege and bombardment of the Gaza Strip, which is testing the tolerance of some of Israel’s staunchest allies. After a deadly Israeli strike on a Gaza school turned shelter this week, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said the harm to civilians could “no longer be justified by a fight against Hamas terrorism” — a sharp departure from Germany’s blanket defense of Israel during the war. Merz cautioned Israel against doing “anything that at some point its best friends are no longer willing to accept.”

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Merz made his comments as the European Union launched a review of its trade ties with Israel after more than a year and half of war. The Netherlands, a stalwart Israeli ally, led the push for the 27-nation bloc to review trade relations. On Tuesday, the head of the E.U.’s executive body, Ursula von der Leyen, also a fierce advocate for Israel, described the expansion of Israel’s military offensive in Gaza as “abhorrent.”

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Some E.U. states are calling for a full suspension of trade ties. Others are trying to distance themselves from the grisly images emerging from Gaza. Their collective action has yet to go far beyond finger-wagging, though, and officials say that issuing punitive measures would be more difficult and could expose the bloc’s divisions.

While frustration with the war has grown on both sides of the Atlantic, the latest European statements have been at odds with the Trump administration’s continuing vocal defense of Israel — part of a broader rift with Washington, over security and trade, that has pushed both the E.U. and Britain to close ranks and chart their own course at times.

A European official said they were regularly updating American counterparts on decisions linked to Israel, and that the two did not agree on the approach. A State Department spokesperson called the condemnation from Western allies “grandstanding” and described a British decision last week to suspend talks on a new trade deal with Israel as “deeply disappointing.” The person spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss differences between allies.

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, commenting last week on French-led efforts to recognize a Palestinian state, said on X that “France, Britain, Canada and others” were aiming to “reward these murderers with the ultimate prize.”

A European proposal to revise trade ties earlier in the war went nowhere, but the latest effort has the backing of a majority of member states. Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares, whose country has been a vocal critic of Israel’s war in Gaza and co-led last year’s proposal, said that what changed for some of his European counterparts was “the level of violence” and the view that Israel was conducting a “war for war’s sake.”

“Some countries needed to see … things that are even against the most basic sense of humanity: withholding food for civilians, seeing these terrible images of babies,” he told The Washington Post. “The second element is that we see that the Israel government has no will to use diplomacy.”

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The Israeli military offensive, the soaring death toll and the mass hunger are becoming too “over-the-top” for European leaders to be associated with, or to look away from, said Nathalie Tocci, director of the Rome-based Institute of International Affairs and a former E.U. foreign policy adviser. “Then of course there is a very explicit plan to reoccupy Gaza, mass expulsion; there’s an accumulation effect,” she said.

Calls by Israeli officials to force Gaza’s population out, and a plan by Netanyahu’s cabinet to indefinitely “control” much of the Palestinian enclave, have made Europe’s continuing endorsement of the war untenable — and Israel’s allies squeamish. “That it’s become so explicit makes it so they’ve got nothing to hide behind,” Tocci said.

An E.U. diplomat, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, said “dissatisfaction grew” as officials lost patience with Netanyahu, reckoned with public opinion and watched another dark turn in the war — a nearly three-month Israeli blockade of food and medicine.

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“We keep seeing these horrible, horrible images out of Gaza,” he added. “We’re reaching the end of what we can bear. That, to me, is indicative of a broader sentiment across Europe.”

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The E.U., the largest international aid donor to Palestinians, has also spent hundreds of millions on humanitarian aid for Gaza. But Israel has held up truckloads of aid since March, as the world’s leading body on hunger crises warns that all of Gaza is at risk of famine. The distribution of some supplies in recent days has done little to blunt the sense of alarm.

E.U. officials have criticized Israel’s arrangement for aid distribution by a private organization with ties to the Israeli and U.S. governments that bypasses the United Nations and relief agencies — a system aid officials have likened to a form of population control.

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European diplomats said there were no plans for the bloc to funnel its aid through the mechanism, which in its first days devolved into chaos and Israeli gunfire, with dozens of injuries and scenes of desperate fenced-in Palestinians waiting for food.

“Humanitarian aid cannot be weaponized,” E.U. foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas told reporters Wednesday. “Most of the aid that has been sent by Europe is really behind the borders and is not reaching people,” she said. “We have also been very clear on not supporting any kind of privatization of the distribution.”

While the United States is by far Israel’s biggest military backer, the Europeans have significant leverage they have been reluctant to use. The E.U. is Israel’s largest trading partner, and Germany is its second-largest supplier of weapons.

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Merz acknowledged his country was more guarded in its criticism of Israel than some of its European neighbors “for historical reasons.” Since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel, German leaders have asserted that Israel’s right to exist is a “Staatsräson,” or a fundamental principle of state, tying it to Germany’s historical responsibility for the Holocaust.

On Tuesday, German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul reaffirmed support for Israel but warned that it should not be “exploited” and that Germany would not be “forced” into solidarity. He hinted at the threat of cutting off weapons supplies to Israel over human rights violations.

France is weighing recognizing a Palestinian state, which Netanyahu has long opposed. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has called for a suspension of E.U. ties and an arms embargo. And Britain last week imposed sanctions on Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank, joining France and Canada in warning Israel to halt its Gaza offensive.

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A second European diplomat said it was clear that Israel was feeling the pressure, given its “very active lobbying against” the E.U.’s review of their agreement, which covers trade and political dialogue. Israel’s Foreign Ministry lambasted the E.U. decision this month and said it “reflects a total misunderstanding of the complex reality.”

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The review will scrutinize whether allegations of human rights law violations by Israel breach its accord with the E.U. The results, expected next month, could force European leaders to take stricter measures.

The E.U. diplomat said some governments see the review as more of a “political signal” to Israel, but conceded that if Netanyahu’s government does not change course, “the pressure will continue to grow from our voters, from citizens to do something.”

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For now, the E.U. is far from having the unanimity required to fully suspend ties. Some economic measures, however, could pass, if there is backing from enough member states. Any punitive measures could run up against divisions in the bloc, whose 27 member states have wildly different sensibilities on the war, spanning the spectrum from pro-Israeli Hungary to pro-Palestinian Ireland.

“My personal view is that it very much looks like genocide,” Belgium’s foreign minister, Maxime Prévot, said in a magazine interview this week. “I don’t know what other horrors must unfold before this word can be used.” He called for sanctions, but acknowledged that that would require the backing of others who don’t share such a view.

And despite their willingness now to reprimand and wield threats, Israel’s Western allies continue to back it militarily and economically, in an alliance they see as preserving their interests in the Middle East. Last week, European leaders offered little more than calls for an investigation after a delegation of visiting diplomats in the West Bank had to flee Israeli warning shots.

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A group of anonymous E.U. staff members who have urged greater pressure for a ceasefire, organized under the banner E.U. Staff for Peace, welcomed the decision to scrutinize the Israeli trade accord but said E.U. declarations of concern often yielded “little or no meaningful action.” “This long-awaited decision comes devastatingly late for thousands killed in Gaza,” it said in a letter to the bloc’s leadership.

U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer is set to visit the White House. Here’s what to know

toggle caption Leon Neal/Getty Images

LONDON — In the five weeks since President Trump took office, the Atlantic Ocean has rarely looked wider.

A chasm has opened between the United States and its European allies over Trump’s handling of Ukraine, Russia, Gaza and cross-border trade.

The U.S. is the European Union’s biggest trading partner, and this month it hit European and other countries with 25% tariffs on steel and aluminum. Trump is threatening more, saying the European Union has been “very unfair” to America.

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On Feb. 14, Vice President JD Vance gave what analysts called an “extremely confrontational” speech to U.S. allies at the Munich Security Conference, declaring there was a “new sheriff in town” and accusing European leaders of censoring right-wing voices — comments that drew strong rebukes.

And last week, European leaders were aghast as the Trump administration held talks with Russia toward a possible peace deal for Ukraine — without Ukraine or any of its European neighbors at the table. Members of the Trump administration have cast doubt on European security as a priority. And the U.S. and Ukraine are negotiating a deal over rare earth mineral resources in exchange for war aid already given, with President Trump citing a price tag much higher than the actual amount.

Many European leaders consider the deal Trump is offering Ukraine unfair, and worry that an emboldened Russian President Vladimir Putin might invade more of their neighbors. After President Trump called Putin earlier this month, Elie Tenenbaum, a security expert at the French Institute for International Relations, told NPR that European leaders were facing a “nightmare scenario.”

Into this scenario now walks a mild-mannered former human rights lawyer who’s been the United Kingdom’s prime minister for just over six months: Keir Starmer.

Starmer, a centrist, will be in Washington on Thursday, following Monday’s White House visit by French President Emmanuel Macron. Starmer, analysts say, will be hoping his announcement of a landmark increase in U.K. defense spending on the eve of his visit will send a signal to Washington that Britain is willing to lead in boosting Europe’s security — and will help ease relations with the president, who has long demanded NATO allies contribute more to Europe’s defense.

Starmer said Tuesday that Britain would increase its defense spending to 2.5% of economic output by 2027, telling the House of Commons that it marked the biggest sustained increase in defense spending since the end of the Cold War. The U.K. will slash its aid budget to pay for this new expenditure.

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Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth welcomed the news, calling it a “strong step from an enduring partner” in a social media post.

Aides say the prime minister will try to leverage the so-called “special relationship” between the U.K. and U.S. and act as a “bridge” between the Trump administration and its increasingly disgruntled allies on the other side of the Atlantic.

“A go-between who understands both the United States and Europe. Through my whole career in diplomacy, that was how we saw ourselves, even though some others didn’t,” says Simon McDonald, a member of the House of Lords who served as the most senior civil servant in the U.K. Foreign Office during Trump’s first administration. “With this new Trump administration, perhaps that old way of seeing ourselves can come into its own.”

But can Starmer find common ground?

What Starmer wants to accomplish in Washington

Starmer would like to get a British exemption from the 25% tariffs Trump has imposed on global steel and aluminum imports, which U.K. steelmakers have called a “devastating blow.” They are due to go into effect next month.

He may also try to sway Trump from his plan to turn the Gaza Strip into what the president called a “Riviera of the Middle East,” and will underscore British support for a two-state solution that includes the right for Palestinians to stay on their land or return to it after it’s rebuilt.

But Starmer’s overwhelming priority, analysts say, is to nudge Trump toward what he and European leaders see as fairer terms for Ukraine in talks toward ending the war there.

“This is about helping Trump understand that a bad deal in Ukraine creates all kinds of existential risks not only for Ukraine but also for Europe and ultimately for America,” says Mujtaba Rahman, managing director for Europe at the Eurasia Group, a risk analysis firm. “A rogue Russia unleashed and unrestrained in Europe could also be a big problem for Trump and his own credibility.”

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Framing it in terms of risks for the U.S., rather than Europe, might be one way to try to sway Trump, Rahman says.

How to approach the U.S. president

Starmer, who in 2016 said he “would not want to have Donald Trump round for dinner,” actually had a two-hour dinner with him at New York’s Trump Tower last September. Starmer was accompanied then — as he will be likely this week as well — by U.K. Foreign Secretary David Lammy, who once called Trump a “woman-hating, neo-Nazi-sympathizing sociopath.”

This will be their first White House meeting during Trump’s second term. And despite Elon Musk’s trolling of Starmer, the U.S. president has said, “I get along with him well. I like him a lot.”

While the E.U.’s top diplomat has accused Trump of “appeasement” with Putin, Starmer has shied away from any public rebuke of Trump ahead of their White House meeting.

“Starmer seems to have a better relationship with Donald Trump,” says Karin von Hippel, a former State Department official and distinguished fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), a nonpartisan security and defense think tank based in London. “He may be able to say, ‘Look, the Europeans are in a tizzy right now. They’re overdoing it, and I can help calm them down.'”

Brexit might even help.

What’s Brexit got to do with it?

Britain’s exit from the European Union, which took effect in January 2020, has not been what many Britons expected. The U.K. economy is floundering. But Brexit may help Starmer distance himself from Europe in Trump’s eyes.

“Trump clearly doesn’t like the European Union. The fact that the United Kingdom has seen things his way [by leaving the E.U.], I think bolsters the United Kingdom in [Trump’s] eyes,” McDonald says.

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Starmer took office last summer promising to “reset” relations with the E.U., which were damaged by Brexit. But now he finds himself trying to salvage relations with another ally, the U.S., as well.

“I think the U.K. does have a balancing act to play. Starmer wants to reset with Europe in a way that doesn’t annoy Trump, and he wants to engage with the U.S. in a way that doesn’t annoy the Europeans,” the Eurasia Group’s Rahman says.

It could put him on neutral ground between the two.

What can Starmer offer Trump?

The next U.K. election isn’t expected until 2029. So Starmer is likely to be in office for Trump’s entire four-year term. Analysts say that could be an asset for Trump — seeing Starmer as a fixture he can rely on and work with long-term.

Starmer has offered to send British troops to Ukraine as part of any future peace deal. And he’s echoed Trump’s call for more U.K. and European defense spending.

There’s also some British hospitality he might offer Trump, in the form of the Royal Family. In 2019, during his first administration, Trump was guest of honor at a state banquet at Buckingham Palace hosted by Queen Elizabeth II. By all accounts, he loved it.

“He was having the time of his life! Her late majesty was someone he clearly respected, and that was a high point for the president,” recalls McDonald, the former diplomat, who was present for that 2019 visit.

McDonald says he expects King Charles III to invite Trump for a similar visit soon. Trump also has “a soft spot” for Scotland, where his mother was born, and where the Trump conglomerate runs golf courses, McDonald notes. These topics could be “icebreakers” for Starmer before launching into policy discussions, he says.

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During the last Trump administration, the U.S. president developed a reputation for seeing the world in a transactional way. Even allies grew accustomed to having to offer Trump something in return for his diplomacy. But Rahman says those days are over — at least when it comes to Ukraine.

“Trump is not transactional when it comes to security. He’s predatory. He’s offering Ukraine a colonial deal that would extract its minerals in support for, not future aid, but for aid that has already been provided,” he says.

Trump has been repeating Kremlin talking points. That’s a “strategic win for Putin and a strategic setback for Europe and the U.K.,” Rahman says.

High stakes

One U.K. political column last week was headlined: “Starmer’s future will be made in America.” Commentators say this White House meeting may be the most important of his political life. Much is at stake.

Last week, after Trump labeled Zelenskyy a “dictator without elections,” Starmer phoned the Ukrainian leader within hours to repudiate the U.S. president’s remarks. Starmer told Zelenskyy it was “perfectly reasonable” to delay elections during wartime — just as Britain had done in World War II.

Trump might resent that, analysts speculate. He might also be irritated by Starmer’s call for some kind of U.S. “backstop” security guarantee for Ukraine.

Another source of tension could be trade. Including all goods and services, the U.K. has a trade surplus with the U.S. But by removing services from that equation and counting physical goods such as steel and aluminum, on which Trump’s new tariffs are to take effect in March, then the U.S. sells more to the U.K.

That nuance is something Starmer will be trying to convey to Trump, in hopes of winning an exemption from current tariffs and avoiding any additional ones.

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The biggest risk for Starmer, analysts say, is that no amount of flattery or emphasis on the historical “special relationship” may be enough to sway Trump away from trade wars and toward a foreign policy that’s more sympathetic to the U.K. and Europe.

“I don’t think Trump has traditional views about alliances and partners. He has disparaged traditional allies and cozied up to dictators,” says von Hippel, the former State Department official. “So he may have a soft spot for the U.K. But he’s not going to let that interfere with his agenda.”