European Commission president hopes to move from confrontation to negotiation after Trump attack on ‘pathetic’ EU

European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen warned this morning that the global economy “will massively suffer” as a result of tariffs imposed by US president Donald Trump last night, as she said the EU was “prepared to respond.”

Despite Trump’s direct attack on “pathetic” EU as he imposed 20% tariffs on the bloc, von der Leyen still expressed hopes that the relationship could “move from confrontation to negotiation,” as she warned “there seems to be no order in disorder.”

“There is this memorable picture of a stick that you can bend and that comes back again and again. But at some point, if you bend too much, the stick breaks.

I believe that in terms of trust in the United States, something has broken down in recent weeks that will not come back so quickly.”