Brendan Murray

The message from the administration is same policy, different tools.

But in the interim, it means companies, governments that have trade deals with the U.S.,

are asking for details, uncertainty returns like it did, like we had last year.

Plan B is this 15 percent global tariff, but that only lasts for 150 days.

So that gets you into mid-August.

And then the administration says that by then they can have

other authorities that are more legally tested and durable.

If you recall, the president put 25% tariff on steel and aluminum in March of last year.

Then he raised it to 50% in June of last year.

And then he added about 400 products that have steel and aluminum in them.

in August.

So that captured a lot of imports and created some collateral damage from companies that use steel and aluminum.

Well, what we know is the Trump administration has acknowledged that the steel and aluminum tariffs that they rolled out in waves last year are overly complicated for a lot of companies and have really created a lot of unintended consequences.

victims that have to pay these tariffs.

They rolled out the first 25% tariff in March of 2025.

Then they raised it to 50% in June.

And then in August, they extended the scope of the tariffs to include a whole host of maybe hundreds of goods that contain steel and aluminum.

European leaders met here in Brussels late into the evening last night and the message that we got from them when they came out looking very tired after a very hectic week was that they can no longer trust the U.S.

the way they used to trust the U.S.

The transatlantic relationship is going to undergo a rethink and the Europeans are talking a lot more than they have in the past about strategic autonomy,