US Tariffs and Global Ripple Effects: Strategies for Business Resilience
The tariffs imposed by US President Trump are having an adverse effect on all parties, including machinery companies and their clients. The EU has until early July to come up with a workable solution.
No two regions are as closely intertwined economically as Europe and the USA. According to the latest report by AmCham and US Chamber of Commerce, the combined trade volume (including subsidiaries) of the two regions reached a record volume of 9.5 trillion dollars in 2024. This has made the US President’s aggressive tariff policy and his equally aggressive rhetoric towards the EU all the more unsettling for companies and investors on both sides of the Atlantic. Donald Trump wants to use the tariffs to force the creation of new industrial jobs in the USA. But this cannot succeed because another factor is much more decisive in preventing new production from being established there, explains US expert Andrew Adair, VDMA Foreign Trade, in the new episode of the VDMA Industry Podcast: “US tariffs and beyond”. “The biggest problem our member companies have in America is finding the right people… They can’t find enough people and they can’t find the right people and then those people often leave,” he explains. This is why many European companies limit themselves to setting up a sales and service organization in the USA.
And the EU? It must now find the right strategy to reach an agreement with Donald Trump that shows its own strength and still signals concessions, explains Holger Kunze, Head of the VDMA European Office in Brussels. “The big topic is non-tariff barriers,” he explains. For example, if the EU reduces reporting obligations for all companies, this could be a lever to make negotiations with the USA a success. However, the familiar partnership of values that has grown over decades is likely to be a thing of the past for a long time. “The future of the transatlantic relationship will be highly transactional, sort of negotiation-oriented and less value- and friendship-oriented,” summarizes VDMA expert Adair – a finding that is also shared in Brussels. The prevailing impression there is now that we must remain very cautious in our dealings with the USA, explains Holger Kunze. “But we still remain economically dependent on each other.”
“The future of the transatlantic relationship will be highly transactional, sort of negotiation-oriented and less value- and friendship-oriented “–Andrew Adair, US expert VDMA Foreign Trade.
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