The article was originally published on the website hn.cz

Donald Trump has spent much of his first and second terms complaining about the European Union. He says the EU is"worse than China," as he repeatedly says when discussing international trade. The US president complains that EU countries maintain high tariffs and make it impossible for American companies to export their products to Europe.

This is a lie, European and American tariffs were at similar levels until Trump returned to office in January of this year. The Union then offered the Americans a reciprocal reduction of tariffs on industrial products to zero.

Trump rejected this and instead announced on Saturday that, effective August 1, importers of goods into the US from EU countries would pay a 30 percent tariff. This is a much higher tariff than EU countries had anticipated.