Bessent: The 50% Tariff Is Only To 'Light A Fire Under The EU'

Right after Trump made his comments about the upcoming tariffs for the EU and Apple, U.S. Treasury Secretary Bessent stated that the president believes the EU's proposal is inferior to those from other countries, and the 50% tariff threat is a response to the EU's negotiation pace, hoping this will prompt the EU to accelerate its actions. He expressed expectations for Apple to play a role in ensuring the security of chip supply chains.

"I would hope that this would light a fire under the EU, because... I've said before, [the] EU has a collective action problem here. It's 27 countries, but they're being represented by this one group in Brussels. So some of the feedback that I've been getting is that the underlying countries don't even know what the EU is negotiating on their behalf," Bessent said in an interview.

"Again, the president is trying to bring back precision manufacturing to the U.S.," Bessent explained. "And I think that one of our greatest vulnerabilities is this external production, especially in semiconductors, and a large part of Apple's components are in semiconductors, so we would like to have Apple help us make the semiconductor supply chain more secure."

Following Bessent's remarks, U.S. stock market losses narrowed during the trading session.

Last week, Trump commented that "Bessent understands the markets - whenever Bessent appears on TV, everything starts rising."

Earlier in the day, after U.S. President Trump threatened on May 23 (local time) to impose 50% tariffs on EU goods and 25% tariffs on Apple products, Apple's stock price, U.S. index futures, and the euro all declined, reigniting investor concerns about the impact of tariffs on the global economy and trade.

The European Commission stated on the 23rd (local time) that it would refrain from commenting on the new U.S. tariff developments until EU Trade and Economic Security Commissioner Sefcovic holds a phone conversation with U.S. Trade Representative Greer. The two sides are scheduled to discuss trade issues later in the day.