STORY: Trump says to impose 25 pct tariffs on EU cars, other products 
SHOOTING TIME: Feb. 26, 2025
DATELINE: Feb. 27, 2025
LENGTH: 00:01:03
LOCATION: Washington D.C. 
CATEGORY: POLITICS 

SHOTLIST:
1. SOUNDBITE 1 (English): DONALD TRUMP, U.S. President
2. SOUNDBITE 2 (English): DONALD TRUMP, U.S. President
3. SOUNDBITE 3 (English): HOWARD LUTNICK U.S. Secretary of Commerce
4. SOUNDBITE 4 (English): DONALD TRUMP, U.S. President    

STORYLINE:

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that his administration has made a decision to impose 25 percent tariffs on products from the European Union (EU), including cars.

SOUNDBITE 1 (English): DONALD TRUMP, U.S. President
"We have made a decision. We'll be announcing it very soon, and it'll be 25 percent generally speaking, and that'll be on cars and all other things."

SOUNDBITE 2 (English): DONALD TRUMP, U.S. President
"And European Union is a different case than Canada, different kind of case. They've really taken advantage of the us (the United States) in a different way. They don't accept our cars. They don't accept, essentially, our farm products. They use all sorts of reasons why not. And we accept everything of them, and we have about a 300-billion-dollar deficit with the European Union."

Politico previously reported that the 300-billion-U.S.-dollar deficit is overstated. "In 2023, the U.S. goods trade deficit with the bloc was 155.8 billion euros, according to EU data. In services, however, the U.S. had a surplus of 104 billion euros, bringing the overall trade balance to 51.8 billion euros (roughly 56 billion U.S. dollars)," according the report.

When asked by a reporter whether he would continue to delay tariffs on Mexico and Canada due to progress on border control, Trump said he would not prevent the tariffs from taking effect and claimed that the influx of fentanyl had caused "millions of deaths."

U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick explained two key deadlines related to the tariffs. Previously, the tariffs on Mexico and Canada had been delayed for one month and is set to take effect on March 4, and the two countries needed to prove to the president before the deadline that they had taken satisfactory actions in controlling the entry of fentanyl. 

Lutnick also noted that the overall tariff actions against more countries would be implemented on April 2.

SOUNDBITE 3 (English): HOWARD LUTNICK, U.S. Secretary of Commerce
"Overall is April 2. So the big transaction is April 2, but the fentanyl related things, they're working hard on the border, at the end of that 30 days, they have to prove to the President that they've satisfied him to that regard, if they have a pause or he won't."

SOUNDBITE 4 (English): DONALD TRUMP, U.S. President
"It will be hard to satisfy. We lose 300,000 people a year to fentanyl."

On Feb. 1, Trump signed an executive order to impose a 25 percent tariff on goods imported from Mexico and Canada, with a 10 percent tariff increase specifically for Canadian energy products. On Feb. 3, Trump announced that the additional tariffs on goods from Mexico and Canada would be deferred for one month, allowing more time for negotiations.

On Monday, Trump said that tariffs on Mexico and Canada will "go forward."

Xinhua News Agency correspondents reporting from Washington D.C.
(XHTV)