WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Friday threatened a 50% tax on all imports from the European Union as well as a 25% tariff on smartphones unless those products are made in America.

The Republican president said he wants to charge higher import taxes on goods from the EU, a longstanding U.S. ally, than from China, a geopolitical rival that had its tariffs cut to 30% this month so Washington and Beijing could hold negotiations. Trump was upset by the lack of progress in trade talks with the EU, which has proposed mutually cutting tariffs to zero even as the president has publicly insisted on preserving a baseline 10% tax on most imports.

“Our discussions with them are going nowhere!” Trump posted on Truth Social. “Therefore, I am recommending a straight 50% Tariff on the European Union, starting on June 1, 2025. There is no Tariff if the product is built or manufactured in the United States.”

Speaking later in the Oval Office, Trump stressed that he was not seeking a deal with the EU and might delay the tariffs if more companies invested in the United States.

“I’m not looking for a deal,” Trump told the reporters. “We’ve set the deal. It’s at 50%.”

The EU’s top trade official, Maros Sefcovic, posted on the social media site X that he spoke Friday with U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.

“The EU’s fully engaged, committed to securing a deal that works for both,” Sefcovic said. “EU-US trade is unmatched & must be guided by mutual respect, not threats. We stand ready to defend our interests.”

Trump’s tariffs against Europe had been preceded by a threat of import taxes against Apple for its plans to continue making its iPhone in Asia. Apple now joins Amazon, Walmart and other major U.S. companies in the White House’s crosshairs as they try to respond to the uncertainty and inflationary pressures unleashed by his tariffs.

“I have long ago informed Tim Cook of Apple that I expect their iPhone’s that will be sold in the United States of America will be manufactured and built in the United States, not India, or anyplace else,” Trump wrote. “If that is not the case, a Tariff of at least 25% must be paid by Apple to the U.S.”

Trump later clarified his post to say that all smartphones made abroad would be taxed and the tariffs could be coming as soon as the end of June.

“It would be also Samsung and anybody that makes that product,” Trump said. “Otherwise, it wouldn’t be fair.”

The statements by Trump are critical in that he suggests the company itself would bear the price of tariffs, contradicting his earlier claims as he rolled out a series of aggressive tariffs over the past several months that foreign countries would shoulder the cost of the import taxes. In general, importers pay the tariffs and the costs are often passed along to consumers in the form of higher prices.

In response to Trump’s tariffs on China, Apple CEO Tim Cook said earlier this month that most iPhones sold in the U.S. during the current fiscal quarter would come from India, with iPads and other devices being imported from Vietnam. After Trump rolled out tariffs in April, bank analysts estimated that a $1,200 iPhone would if made in America jump in price anywhere from $1,500 to $3,500.

Stocks sold off after Trump’s postings, with the S&P 500 index down roughly 0.67%. The markets have developed a hair-trigger sensitivity to the U.S. president’s statements, often slumping when he announces high tariffs and rallying when he retreats from those threats.

US VS. EU

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent tried to provide some clarity on Trump’s postings in a Friday interview on the Fox News show “America’s Newsroom.”

Bessent said the EU has a “collective action problem” because its 27 member states are being represented by “this one group in Brussels,” such that the “underlying countries don’t even know what the EU is negotiating on their behalf.”

The Treasury secretary said he was not in a White House meeting this week that Cook attended, but he also spoke with the Apple CEO this week. Bessent said the goal was to have Apple bring more of its computer chip supply chain into the U.S.

The core of Trump’s argument against the EU is that America runs a “totally unacceptable” trade deficit with the 27 member states. Countries run trade deficits when they import more goods than they export.

ANALYSTS SKEPTICAL ABOUT APPLE

Analysts have been skeptical that Apple could quickly shift device manufacturing to the U.S., mainly because it has spent decades embedding complex supply chains in China to feed the factories. But it also has the challenge of grappling with “the unpredictable nature of the current U.S. administration,” said Ben Wood, chief analyst at U.K.-based research firm CCS Insight.