Donald Trump the Megathread part II - Mod Warning updated in OP 12/2/26

Tariffs are applied to the country of origin. Trade agreements mean some countries are treated the same (or as one in the case of the EU).

Yes it may be illegal and yes I'm sure the EU will retaliate by targeted industry specific tariffs. (I hope every NATO country in the EU sends a military representative to Greenland to piss Trump off even more)

However as I have stated Trump can impose country specific tariffs on EU countries. The EU can complain and bring a case to the EU or impose counter tariffs etc… but that doesn't change the fact that Trump can impose those tariffs. If/When he TACO's is irrelevant, we're debating about if Trump can actually do it, which he can. If he actually does it, is a completely different matter.

The U.K posted one officer to the multinational military force so recently established on Greenland as a sign of solidarity with the Greenland citizens objecting to Trump's threat to take the island by military means if the Greenlanders wont accept his offer of a cash deal. Trumps response must be a kick in the teeth for the U.K's PM after he allowed the U.S military land large cargo planes on two air bases in the U.K carrying the disassembled Chinooks and Apache attack copters, along with the U.S special Forces teams, to seize the trans-Atlantic Russian flagged oil tanker last week. A week is a long time in politics…

Did you see fireworks outside your window?

Again, it would be illegal for him to do so. Trade happens between markets, not countries.

He can try, but again this isn’t as easy for customs to perform within the US, so that’s another hurdle for them to jump over. Goods move freely with the EU, so the country of origin could be where a good was made, produced or altered. For tariff and trade policy, the US deals with the EU, so they treat the good as coming from one source. So even if that says Germany or France, the tariff would be applied to the EU.

The EU is already united in this and is probably preparing its retaliation, so we can just wait and see on that front.

I wonder will the threat of tariffs be met with a ban on certain military activities in Europe? It’s hard to know what will “hurt” the US though simply because:

1. Trump doesn’t give a sh1t about polls and public opinion polls in the main
2. America as a whole is in a coma right now so there really isn’t anything that will bother Trump - and if something does, he’ll roll out troops and national guard and ICE and quash it
3. As long as the American billionaires are happy and making money, unemployment or health or whatever won’t register in his little mind

Limiting American military activity in Europe will likely be met with a “we’re gone from NATO” response or he’ll start helping Putin take Ukraine more openly than he’s doing right now

Furthermore, China have been hit hardest with tariffs. It might be time for the EU to coordinate with China to disrupt us industry in red states. A collective action from both

Illegal under what law… US law? That's the only law Trump can be held uncountable to (at that's even wishful thinking)

Yes it's extremely easy for customs to perform, it's country of origin. If I buy a BMW from Germany and ship it from Ireland, I enter Germany as the COO for it. If I ship some Waterford crystal to the US and it gets routed through FedEx in Germany it's marked as Ireland as COO, despite shipping from Germany. If I ship an IPhone from Ireland to the US, the COO is China.

We're debating if Trump can target individual countries within the EU, yes he can, every package entering the US as a country of origin. He can base the tariff on that.

The legality or the united EU response is completely separate. Yes he may target a single EU country, but the EU as a whole will implement counter tariffs.

It's not incorrect, the EU target certain industries where red states suffer the most… think whiskey etc…. it hits red states hardest.

Likewise if you want to target Germany you tariff the motor industry, Ireland the pharma, France the wine etc….

The country of origin is primarily used for logistics, labelling and stats, things like that. Tariffs etc are applied at the EU level, so again, that would be another shift in how they perform trade and logistics. It’s not as simple as looking at a docket for a shipment, they are usually like books, not leaflets.

Under WTO law, of course he doesn’t care about that, and he himself won’t pay a price. As always, Americans will, but we know that already.

We aren’t debating it, it’s a simple fact that trade happens at the EU level, as it has done for years. The tariff isn’t based off the country of origin, it’s based off the market. It’s under its own trade policy that the US does this. The tariffs and trade remedies are at the EU level, it’s just that simple.

You’re getting closer now. The US can target specific companies from certain countries, so BMW, Audi etc, with pharma America would be targeting a lot of American companies, which I wouldn’t put past them.

But the EU haven’t targeted specific states within the US.

Wonder what the plan is when the 25% tariffs doesnt work? I guess The EU wont sign the US-EU trade deal so it looks like we will have economic uncertainty for a number of months. Maybe until the American Mid-terns.

Apple has nothing to do with this. I also said it would be used for statistics, you can include labelling on that.

You’re struggling to understand how markets work here, and tariffs are applied at the most basic level.

You don’t need pages of documents? Whatever you say.

You seem to fail to acknowledge that tariffs are at the sole discretionary of the country who apply them to imports.
Trump can impose a 10000% tariff on anything he likes. He can can and has undercut trade policies and international law.
His reciprocal tariffs undercut trade policies and WTO rules and yet here were are months later and US companies and citizens are still paying those tariffs. US laws trump international laws (in the eyes in America)