US President Donald Trump said on 1 May that next week he would raise duties on cars and trucks from the European Union to 25%. He said that the reason for the tariff increase was the EU’s failure to comply with the terms of the trade agreement. The U.S. President did not specify what conditions we are talking about.
If cars and lorries are produced at factories in the USA, duties will not be charged, Trump wrote in his Truth social network.
We are talking about a trade agreement agreed in 2025 and finalised in early 2026. The agreement provides for the cancellation of European duties on American industrial products and sets a ceiling on tariffs for most goods from Europe. Now the document has not entered into force definitively.
Bernd Lange, chairman of the European Parliament’s Committee on International Trade, said he found Trump’s behaviour “unacceptable”. He added that the increase in duties demonstrates the “unreliability” of the US.
In 2025, the Trump administration imposed 25 per cent duties on car imports worldwide, but then came to an agreement with the European Union, reducing them to 15 per cent.
In February 2026, the US Supreme Court ruled most of President Trump’s tariffs illegal, including “reciprocal” duties on imports from virtually every country in the world and 25 per cent tariffs on goods from Canada, Mexico and China. Under the ruling, companies that have already paid will be able to seek refunds from the Treasury Department.