Although there is still a month until Donald Trump is inaugurated as the new US president, he is already in full swing with the work. Most recently, he has taken to his own social media, Truth Social, to campaign against the EU. Trump wants to do something about the EU's trade surplus with the US.
- I told the EU that they must do something about their enormous deficit with the US by buying oil and gas in large quantities. Otherwise, there will be large-scale tariffs, says a post on Trump's own profile.
At the Confederation of Danish Industry, Peter Bay Kirkegaard, who is senior chief consultant for global trade and investment, does not see any major problems in complying with Trump's demands.
The EU has already indicated that it is interested in buying American gas, because it is something it already needs and which helps to make us independent of Russia.
- But the EU is not a planned economy. Therefore, one can ask state energy companies to buy American oil and gas, but the question is how that would work in practice on a free market. That also requires that there is some gas to buy. We have previously seen the Chinese enter into an agreement to buy more American agricultural goods, but when it came down to it, they were not available on the market. The American sellers sell the goods where they can get the best prices, he says.
Well-known Trump strategy
Peter Bay Kirkegaard also notes a pattern when it comes to Trump's way of achieving the desired results in a negotiation situation.
- His experience is that threats work. But the problem is that the weapon of threat risks being diluted over time if you can just stick him a little piece that makes him happy. At the same time, there is also a risk that he may be forced to carry out the threats at some point, and then it could quickly become expensive to be an American, says Peter Bay Kirkegaard.
A month ago, Trump made similar threats against Mexico and Canada. He threatened both neighboring countries with a punitive tariff of 25 percent if they did not make an active effort to prevent the flow of immigrants and drugs into the United States.
This led, among other things, to the Canadian government presenting a border surveillance package on Tuesday, which includes the purchase of more drones and helicopters.
/ritzau/
Text, graphics, images, sound, and other content on this website are protected under copyright law. DK Medier reserves all rights to the content, including the right to exploit the content for the purpose of text and data mining, cf. Section 11b of the Copyright Act and Article 4 of the DSM Directive.
Customers with IP agreements/major customer agreements may only share Danish Offshore Industry articles internally for the purpose of handling specific cases. Sharing in connection with specific cases refers to journaling, archiving, or similar uses.
Customers with a personal subscription/login may not share Danish Offshore Industry articles with individuals who do not themselves have a personal subscription to Danish Offshore Industry.
Any deviation from the above requires written consent from DK Medier.
