Europe will succumb to the USA in the customs war? Arnault presses on the EU

The owner of LVMH Bernard Arnault said on Thursday “Wall Street Journal” that he pressed European leaders to conclude a trade agreement with the USA. According to the newspaper, the richest European billionaire encouraged to accept conditions similar to those that the USA made with Japan.

According to “Wall Street Journal”, the French head of the conglomerate controlling over 70 luxury brands, including Louis Vuitton, is an ally of Donald Trump and urges the European Union to accept the terms of the trade agreement. Arnault, who knows Trump and was a guest at his inauguration, in recent weeks he talked many times with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni about how to avoid a customs war from the USA.

“I press with all my strength to reach an agreement with the Americans,” said the businessman in an interview with WSJ. According to Dziennik, the billionaire wants the Union to adopt conditions similar to those negotiated by Japan, i.e. 15 percent. customs, which would also include, among others Cars and car parts. The financial director of the Cecile Cabanis conglomerate said on Thursday that such a tariff rate would be a “good result” for LVMH clients.

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Arnault also announced that he is planning to open Louis Vuitton's second factory in Texas. For months, he has also publicly called on concessions to Trump's administration, warning that Brussels would be guilty if he moved the company behind the Atlantic.

According to the Financial Times, the EU and the USA are close to the agreement that would set a 15 % duties on imports with the EU. At the same time, the Union prepared a package of retaliation, if an agreement did not occur and Trump would realize its threat of imposing 30 % duties. On Thursday, the American trade minister Howard Lutnick assured that the EU “very, very much” wants to conclude an agreement and stated that the US is pressing, among others for better treatment of American technological giants and the abandonment of digital taxes that have introduced some Member States.

From Washington Oskar Górzyński (PAP)

OSK/ PIU/