Starting from April 2, Donald Trump intends to introduce so-called reciprocal duties against, presumably, 15 countries, mainly belonging to the European Union. The US president himself called it a way to equalize the imbalance in the country’s trade. Trump calls the date of April 2 the “Day of Liberation” of America from foreign “freeloaders.” At the same time, he suddenly started talking about the fact that he was ready to run, contrary to the US Constitution, for a third term. Perhaps in this way, Trump only wants to shift public attention in the country, at a time when his administration is making ambiguous decisions that are also extremely difficult to implement.
Trump announced the introduction of mutual duties from April in early March, speaking to Congress. “If you don’t manufacture your product in America, then under the Trump administration you will pay, in some cases, quite a lot. Other countries have been applying tariffs against us for decades, and now it’s our turn to use them against them. On average, the EU, China, Brazil, India, Mexico and Canada charge us much higher duties than we charge them. This is extremely unfair,” the president explained at the time. According to Trump, he wanted to impose duties on April 1, but then remembered that it was April Fool’s Day, and therefore postponed them a day later. “Liberation Day” is what Trump now calls April 2 and explains that he means freeing the United States from freeloaders in the form of foreign businesses that benefit from the trade imbalance.
On Tuesday, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen promised that the actions of the American president would not go unanswered. She said that the EU has a “strong plan” in case reciprocal duties are “really” introduced. “Our goal is to find a negotiated solution. However, if necessary, we will, of course, protect our interests,” von der Leyen says.
Some skepticism from the president of the European Commission about the prospects that Trump will actually carry out his threat is understandable. Many of the widely publicized initiatives of the current US president, in fact, remained on paper, faced with bans from American courts. And in this case, it is possible that the trade war will be stopped in court. Then there will be more work for Trump’s legal team, which is already busy.
Through the courts, the president is being purposefully attacked by his opponents from the Democratic Party. The latest example of this kind is a lawsuit filed in a federal court in Washington demanding the repeal of Trump’s executive order regarding the election. According to the decree, voters who came to vote will be required to provide proof of U.S. citizenship, and election commissions are prohibited from counting ballots sent by mail after election day. Trump is going to deprive states that do not ensure the “security of the expression of the will” of Americans of federal funding. Among the complainants are the leaders of the Democratic factions in both houses of Congress: Member of the House of Representatives Hakim Jeffries and Senator Chuck Schumer. In their statement of claim, they call Trump’s decree an “unconstitutional seizure of power.”
Meanwhile, the president himself hints that he is ready to encroach on the Constitution. At a briefing at the White House, Trump said that he was not joking when he said in an interview with NBC News that there are ways to allow him to run for a third term. This is explicitly prohibited by the 22nd Amendment to the American Constitution, which was adopted back in 1947. Trump said he was not yet considering running for a third term, but would like to fight for the White House with Barack Obama. Many supporters of the Democratic Party would like this very popular politician to participate in the presidential election instead of Joseph Biden. However, Obama himself, who has already served two terms as president, has never advocated for appropriate constitutional changes. He did not even support the popular idea of nominating his wife Michelle for the post of head of state.
According to Vladimir Vasiliev, chief researcher at the Institute of the USA and Canada of the Russian Academy of Sciences, perhaps in this way Trump only wants to influence the media agenda, to throw in a topic that everyone will discuss. “There is a lot that has stalled in the work of the current administration. Both in foreign policy and within the United States, the president cannot do what he promised. There is something everywhere, there is no rapid progress. And Trump is a man who should own the media space. Everyone should say: Trump, Trump, Trump. This is his tactic,” the expert said in a conversation with NG.Â
