President Trump said in a middle-of-the-night social media post early on Thursday that he would come after the European Union and Canada if they banded together against America, opening a new front in the unfolding
trade war
.
“If the European Union works with Canada in order to do economic harm to the USA,
large scale Tariffs
, far larger than currently planned, will be placed on them both in order to protect the best friend that each of those two countries has ever had!” Trump wrote. Trump’s post creates a new problem for the EU. The US is by far Europe’s most important trading partner, and the prospect of worse trading conditions has left the EU scrambling to negotiate. But the Trump administration has showed little appetite to strike a deal so far. “In the end, as it is said, one hand cannot clap,” Maros Sefcovic, the trade commissioner for EU, has said.