The European Union has been "very, very tough to deal with," but it has "no choice" but to negotiate a new trade deal with the United States, President Donald Trump said in an interview from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland Wednesday.
"They’ve taken advantage of our country, the European Union, for many, many years," Trump told CNBC's Joe Kernen. "I told them, we can’t do it anymore."
Trump and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen met on Tuesday for what the president described as a "great talk."
However, he said he warned her that without a trade deal, he would have to "take action, and the action will be very high tariffs on their cars and other things that come into our country."
He told Kernen he did not want to make his audience "nervous," because the EU will "make a deal because they have to."
Trump added that he would be "very surprised" if he had to implement tariffs.
"We’ve had a tremendous deficit for many, many years," said Trump. "Over $150 billion with Europe."
Trump and von der Leyen's predecessor Jean-Claud Juncker had agreed to start talks on a new trade deal that would have avoided tariffs, but the president told Kernen that while Juncker was a "friend" of his, "he was impossible to deal with."
With von der Leyen now heading the commission, Trump said he also thinks talks will go better for Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
Trump said he held off on the EU deal while he was working on the other trade deals with China, Mexico, and Canada, but now "we are going to do Europe."
The president also confirmed that negotiations are underway with Johnson for a possible bilateral trade deal. The United Kingdom is set to leave the EU on Jan. 31, and any trade agreement between the United States and the UK could only come into play after the end of the transition period with the EU, set to last until the end of this year, reports CNBC.
“Boris and I are friends, and he wants to make a deal and that’s OK with me. They want it, they need it,” Trump said.
The president also touted other recent trade deals, including phase one of the deal with China signed earlier this month.
"We're going to have tremendous growth...don’t forget, I made a $40 billion deal with Japan. I made a massive deal with South Korea. Nobody even knows what the number is, but, you know, it was a horrible deal, now it’s a great deal."
He added that there are about "10 countries that we're dealing with" but "these deals were horrible."
"In many cases, we didn’t even have a deal," he said. "They just came in here and took advantage of our country. So we have massive potential, massive growth, and you’ll see that toward the middle to the end of next year."
© 2023 Newsmax. All rights reserved.