Trump repeated a false claim he has repeatedly made about European countries and trade: “They don’t take our cars, they don’t take our farm products, they don’t take anything.” He also said, “European Union: We have a trade deficit of $350 billion.”
Facts First: None of this is true.
It’s not true that the European Union doesn’t “take anything” from the US. The US exported about $368 billion in goods to the European Union in 2023 (while importing about $576 billion from the EU that year), US federal figures show.
Trump exaggerated the US trade deficit with the European Union when he said it was “$350 billion.” Even counting only trade in goods, and ignoring the services trade at which the US excels, the nominal (non-inflation-adjusted) deficit was about $209 billion in 2023. While it was on track to be tens of billions higher in 2024, for which complete data is not yet available, it is expected to be well under $300 billion.
It’s also not true that “they don’t take our cars,” though US automakers have often struggled to succeed in Europe. According to a December 2023 report from the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association, the EU is the second-largest market for US vehicle exports – importing 271,476 US vehicles in 2022, valued at nearly 9 billion euro. (Some of these are vehicles made by European automakers at plants in the US.)
And it’s false that “they don’t take our farm products”; the US government says the EU was the fifth-largest 2022 export market for US agricultural and related products, behind China, Canada, Mexico and Japan.
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