EU Strikes Back
the 27 are not amused
Europe gets the bill for another PrumpTutin tantrum—and this time, they brought receipts
So here we are again: another week, another economic grenade tossed across the Atlantic by Donald J. PrumpTutin, who seems to think global trade is just another episode of The Apprentice, and every country not bending the knee should be fired.
This time, he’s going after all twenty-seven member nations of the European Union. Every last one. Latvia to Luxembourg. Italy to Ireland. Even Malta, which hasn’t hurt anyone since the Crusades. Starting August 1st, if they don’t fall in line with the new tariff regime, they’ll be slapped with a 30% tax on everything they export to the United States—from BMWs to brie.
Why? Because PrumpTutin says it’s “unfair.”
Why really? Because power projection makes him feel big where he isn't.
This so-called reciprocal tariff baseline isn’t about fairness. It’s about leverage. Shake ‘em down, get a headline, move on. Standard autocrat playbook. Never mind that EU tariffs are already lower on average than ours, or that this “deal” he wants mirrors the kind of extortion you’d find in a gas station parking lot.
But Europe’s not having it. They’ve drawn up a €93 billion retaliation package that’ll hit us right back—bourbon, motorcycles, semiconductors, and Florida orange juice. Because nothing says “superpower” like getting pantsed by Belgium.
what’s really going on
This isn’t policy. It’s a mood disorder with legal backing. PrumpTutin doesn’t do economics—he does dominance rituals. He’s betting that, like Japan and the Philippines, the EU will blink and settle for the 15% “deal” just to make him go away.
But the EU isn’t a strip mall. It’s the world’s third-largest economy, and it’s run by people who wear glasses, use complete sentences, and remember what happened last time PrumpTutin was in charge.
They know he doesn’t believe in institutions. He believes in loyalty. Not to country—his loyalty ends at the lapel. And the EU? It’s multilateral, democratic, multilingual, and allergic to fascists. So, of course he wants to crush it.
what the 27 are doing
Here’s the plan: coordinated counter-tariffs. Public shaming. Legal complaints to the WTO, even if that’s mostly for sport. And serious phone calls to China, India, and South America about trade routes that don’t run through the land of the free-for-all.
This isn’t tit-for-tat. It’s survival strategy. The EU was built to keep another 1930s from happening. They’ve seen this movie before. They remember what comes after tariffs, and it isn’t prosperity.
who pays
Not PrumpTutin. Not the billionaires. Not the bureaucrats in Brussels. The people who pay are the ones with shopping carts. The ones trying to make rent. The ones wondering why feta cheese is now nine bucks and their kid’s asthma inhaler costs more than their car insurance.
Who wins? China
Florida orange growers? What’s left of them might take a hit too. But that assumes they still exist in a meaningful way, which brings us to—
appendix: Florida orange juice—yes, barely
Yes, Florida still makes orange juice. Technically. But calling it an “industry” at this point is a bit like calling Sears a growth company.
The 2024–25 harvest is the smallest in nearly a century. Citrus greening, hurricanes, abandoned groves—it’s been a slow-motion collapse. Most “Florida” juice on the shelf is cut with concentrate from Brazil or Mexico, assuming tariffs don’t price those out too.
So, when Europe hits back with a tax on Florida OJ, it’s not just symbolic—it’s nostalgic. Like slapping a tariff on covered wagons.
Florida orange juice isn’t dead. But it’s on life support. And someone just raised the hospital bill.
