The Current - What are other countries doing about Trump’s tariffs?

Episode Date: April 30, 2025

How is the rest of the world responding to U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs? We check in with reporters in Japan, South Africa and the EU to see what Canada could learn from negotiations around the globe.

1942, Europe. Soldiers find a boy surviving alone in the woods. They make him a member of Hitler's army. But what no one would know for decades, he was Jewish. Could a story so unbelievable be true? I'm Dan Goldberg. I'm from CBC's personally, Toy Soldier. Available now wherever you get your podcasts. This is a CBC Podcast. Hello, I'm Matt Galloway and this is The Current Podcast. Ninety deals in 90 days.

That was the premise from the Trump administration after it put a pause on global tariffs to leave room to negotiate with countries one by one. Thus far, nearly one month has passed since then. Yesterday, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told CNBC there is actually one deal in the can. I have a deal. Done. Done.

Done. But I need to wait for their prime minister and their parliament to give its approval, which I expect shortly. What country? I'm not going to tell you what country. I'll let the president decide. Wait, just you and me here and a couple million people hopefully watching. I'll let the president decide.

And then there are country after country where we're just working through the details. But you have to remember, they have prime ministers, they have parliament, they have to work through their process. But all of these are going to be coming. And what they're going to be is they're going to be incredibly smart Incredibly thoughtful they're going to unleash the ability for us to export to them to grow and they are going to also protect our industry So we can grow So we don't know what country Howard Letnick is talking about there when he says one deal is in place the US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that no trade deal is done until Donald Trump himself announces it

But a number of countries right now are actually negotiating with the US. Perhaps soon that could include Canada under the new Liberal government. Today we are going to hear from a few of those countries about how those negotiations are going. We begin in Japan where after the first round of talks, Donald Trump said there had been big progress. Elizabeth Beattie is a journalist based in Tokyo, covers business and economics. Elizabeth, hello.

Hey, thanks for having me. Glad to have you here. We heard from Howard Lutnick, says that they have one deal. Do you think that might potentially be with Japan? I think it's unlikely that Japan is the country in question. At the moment, Japan's top negotiator, Ryosei Akazawa, is en route for Washington for further talks. And from what officials have said, there's still quite a bit more discussion to go before

the deal is reached. Akazawa made some comments to the media here saying, you know, everyday Japanese companies are suffering losses, he's committed to making progress. So it seems slightly unlikely that he would have made a deal before those second round of meetings start back up again. When Donald Trump announced that big laundry list of tariffs in early April, what was the public reaction in Japan? I think there was, there was a sense of shock.

Tariffs have dominated the news cycle here in Japan since they were announced. And a lot of wishful thinking that a deal will be reached. Tariffs have dominated the news cycle here in Japan since they were announced, and a lot of wishful thinking that a deal would be reached. But certainly shocking, various industries, including Japan's very large auto industry, was reeling when those tariffs were announced. There was an opposition politician who said that the US approach to these tariffs

was extortion. Do people share that opinion? That's a pretty strong word to use. Yeah. So Shinji Oguma, he's quite an outspoken figure. And he recently just gave another speech at the press club here saying America's trying to mug us. Those comments would certainly tap into a part of the population in Japan.

They would resonate with some. But yeah, he is an opposition figure as well. So it's kind of the issue of being a little bit politicized perhaps as well. Is there any sense as to what the Trump administration actually wants from Japan? I think that's a little bit tricky to say. There's been kind of leaks in the Japanese media that maybe the US has been a little bit tricky to say. There's been kind of leaks in the Japanese media that maybe the US has been a little bit opaque. Trump has been very effusive that there's progress being

made, but it's a little bit hard to say. There's a few areas of compatibility where a deal could be reached. Japan places tariffs on foreign rice, and the US wants Japan to import more agricultural products. So that's potentially an area of compatibility. But yeah, the auto tariffs are a very big concern for Japan. And it's a little bit difficult to see them being completely discarded at this stage. Tell me more about that and how worried the Japanese auto sector is right now.

It's certainly a big concern. So Akazawa, who, as I mentioned, is departing for Washington, he told reporters before he left that he'd been in discussion with automakers and they had mentioned, one automaker in particular had mentioned that his company was suffering a million loss, a million dollar loss every hour. So there's certainly a real concern from the auto industry here. They export a large, they're one of the, the US is like a very large market for auto exports.

So it's very valuable for Japan. There's a hope that some wiggle room will be negotiated, but a serious impact for Japanese automakers here. What about more broadly in the Japanese economy? Before this agreement to pause the tariffs on that giant board that Donald Trump held up, the US was going to impose a rate of 24% on Japan. There are already concerns in the Japanese economy around inflation and the cost of staples,

eggs, and rice, and things like that. How seriously would that have impacted the Japanese economy? I think that would have serious impact. Like you mentioned, Japan has a number of domestic challenges itself, which it's been grappling with. And even the tariffs in their current form are highly concerning on a political level, but also for Japanese consumers. There is the fact that Japan's currency is quite weak against the dollar.

It's strengthened recently a little bit, but imported goods are very expensive for Japanese households. Inflation is also beginning to hit Japan, so grocery bills are increasing. It's something we see. I see every time I go to a supermarket here or buy something from the convenience store. Salaries are pretty low in Japan. So even a little bit of inflation is felt and tariffs on top of that kind of culminate

various underlying domestic factors in Japan. So highly concerning. And so just finally, as you said, the talks are set to get underway. Donald Trump has said there has been big progress already. What's your sense as to how things will go over the next few weeks? It's a little hard to say. Japan is being incredibly diplomatic. There was definitely a reaction, as I mentioned, when the tariffs were announced and that extended

to the government officials. But yeah, Japanese officials are being incredibly diplomatic. They're still pushing for a deal that isn't going to impede the Japanese economy too severely. But little criticism is being leaked. Little criticism is being voiced. There's a sense that Donald Trump is who they have to deal with, that administration. So I think we're going to see a lot of diplomatic kind of footsteps in the next few days and weeks. Elizabeth, thank you very much for this. Thanks. Elizabeth Beattie is a journalist based in Tokyo. A huge piece of the tariff puzzle is

the European Union. According to the United States, the total value of trade in goods between the US and the EU was just over $975 billion US in 2024 alone. In the Oval Office earlier this month, Donald Trump aired some of his grievances about that trade relationship. The European Union's been very bad to us. They don't take our cars, like Japan in that sense, they don't take our agricultural product, they don't take our agricultural product. They don't take anything practically. And yet they send millions of cars in a year, Mercedes-Benz, Volkswagen, BMWs. They're sending millions and millions of cars into the US.

But we don't have a car that's been sold to the European Union or other places, but let's go for the European Union. Magnus Lund Nielsen is a EU politics reporter at Euractiv. It's a news outlet that covers European affairs. He's in Brussels. Magnus, hello to you. Hi Matt, thanks for having me. Thank you for being here. Donald Trump says the EU has been very bad to us. Is there any merit to that complaint? You asked, of course, Trump believes so. He is right in so far that there is a trade deficit on goods between the European Union and the US. There is a trade surplus on services.

So it depends on where you sort of where you put the needle. There is something to talk about, yes. Do you have a sense as to, I mean, this is the question that I asked Elizabeth about Japan. Is there any sense as to what the United States is looking for from the EU? No, and that is frankly the big issue here. I think I attend a lot of the press briefings that the European Commission holds and I think what stems from a lot of them is this sheer apathy. They have a hard time figuring out what is actually expected from the Europeans.

From the clip you just played, you can tell that he's awfully mad about Europeans not buying American cars. Well, we don't do that because we have certain safety standards that American cars tend to not live up to. Same goes for the potential import of American food, because we have some health standards here that doesn't quite strictly exactly align with that of the US. The US Commerce Secretary, Lutnick, went on Fox News a few weeks ago saying that the Europeans don't buy the US beef because the US beef is strong and the European beef is weak. And we probably would say that more to do with the fact that we have

pretty strict rules in place concerning whether you can treat your cattle with hormones or you can inject chicken with chlorine and so forth. And all these things are, the European Commission has said, are sacrosanct. I mean, they're not on the table. So if he's looking for us to buy more Cybertrucks, they would have to revise how they design a Cybertruck. So you wouldn't be so much put your life at risk as a pedestrian. So in the absence of clarity or any real interest from the European, members of the European Union in bending to what perhaps Donald Trump is looking for, if the tariffs that he's promised

go through after this 90-day pause, what is that going to mean to the EU? Obviously this is going to hurt the EU. I think the reading here in Brussels is that it's probably going to hurt the Americans a bit more, and so we probably won't get to that. As our good colleague Elizabeth said from Japan, I think the diplomatic approach is the same in Brussels, that you're trying to maybe see weight in this out a bit, and not playing the sort of the hardball game that the Chinese seem to be playing, where they are one-upping Trump, at least every other day in the beginning of this whole fight.

I think you're taking this pretty cautiously and waiting and seeing for a bit. But I mean, it's interesting because the president of the European Commission apparently has not actually met with Donald Trump or had an official meeting. They sort of ran into each other at the Pope's funeral, but they have not had a meeting. He has been critical of the EU. She said that there is an unpredictable tariff policy of the US administration. What does that say to you about the relationship or lack thereof? You're touching on something extremely important there. Trump seems to be pretending to live

in a world where the European Union doesn't exist and applying a sort of divide and conquer tactic where he'd much rather speak to Macron and he'd much rather speak to He much rather speak to Meloni of Italy. The great thing is that Just about every European leader even Meloni who is by no account a European jubilant Has said well you have to take these talks with European Commission and it has been like European Commission as well What we understand has tried to get a meeting in place between Trump and the European Commission president, von der Leyen, for quite some time now. But it has been kind of difficult. And I think the fact that they sort of have to run into each other on the sidelines of the post funeral the other day is telling of how difficult it is to get a meeting in

place. Could I just ask you finally about other things that might complicate this story, one of which is Greenland and the sovereignty of Greenland, which Donald Trump seems obsessed with. The other is the issue of Ukraine and ensuring that Ukraine can defend itself. How does that factor into what we're talking about? It's of course a part of the whole schism here. I'm Danish myself and I have a family in Greenland and so this of course hits very close to heart. I think the Danish Prime Minister, if I had to talk

about her for a minute, has been quite successful in turning this into a European issue. So this speaks into the wider transatlantic spat we are finding ourselves in right now. On the question of Ukraine, I think that also is testimony to the fact that Europeans don't want to upset Washington more than they strictly need to right now. And that's also why you'd be interested in finding some common ground down the line. We'll see whether that ground can be found. Magnus, good to speak with you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Magnus Lund Nielsen is EU politics reporter at YourActive. It's a news outlet that covers European affairs. He was in Brussels.

In the fall of 2001, while Americans were still grappling with the horror of September 11th, envelopes started showing up at media outlets and government buildings filled with a white lethal powder, anthrax. But what's strange is if you ask people now what happened with that story, almost no one knows. It's like the whole thing just disappeared. Who mailed those letters? Do you know? From Wolf Entertainment, USG Audio, and CBC podcasts, this is Aftermath, the hunt for

the anthrax killer. Available now. Well, while a trade partner like the EU might be pretty high priority for US negotiators, others are further down the list. And in the case of South Africa, it's all happening against the backdrop of a deteriorating diplomatic relationship between South Africa and the United States. Karine Di Plessy is the Southern African correspondent

for the Africa Report. She's in Johannesburg. Karine, hello to you. Hi, good afternoon. Good to have you back on the program. Good afternoon from you. It's in the morning here, yes. When Donald Trump announced those tariffs in April, South Africa was targeted on that giant board of his with a tariff rate of 30%. What would

that do to the South African economy? I think it would have a great effect in pockets of the economy. As far as I understand it, it could affect the agriculture sector very badly. And agriculture is, you know, it's got pockets of activity, especially in the rural areas where it matters the most.

So for instance, the citrus industry, I think about, I think, yeah, I'm not sure the percentage, but there's a great percentage from the citrus industry that goes, I think, 7% of exports from the citrus industry goes to America. And there are entire towns that were built on exporting citrus to America. So those towns will effectively face collapse unless they can negotiate, renegotiate another trade partner, but it could take a while. And also our economy has been, the agriculture sector has been benefiting from the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act, which offered a tariff free access to the American market on certain products,

offered a tariff-free access to the American market on certain products, as it is for the rest of the continent. So yeah, it will have quite a profound effect, and it also comes at a time when South Africa can't really afford it. So how is the government trying to deal with this? One of the things we've heard from the EU and from Japan is that people are trying to figure out in some ways what the US wants. How has the South African government responded? Yeah, I think we're also in the same boat

trying to figure out what they want. I think we're quite sure, you know, Donald Trump has attacked our domestic policy quite a bit. The Expropriation Act, which was signed into law, I think was around the time when Trump was sworn in. He's attacked our race-based empowerment policies. He has attacked our, well, he's not quite explicitly attacked it that much, but the cases South Africa brought against Israel at the International Court of Justice, I think that's also been attacked by a lot of Trump's advisors or people around him.

So yeah, I suspect that we'll have to tweak some of our domestic policies. It seems like our presidents appointed Goldman Sachs as advisors. There was a report in the Wall Street Journal, there was nothing on the record on this, but he does seem to have strengthened the advisors around him and they seem to suggest that there should be tweaks to the expropriation act perhaps. And do you think the government would be willing to negotiate with on things like that, on that or perhaps withdrawing, maybe modifying the ICJ case against Israel? Yeah, the ICJ case, I think, is non-negotiable. I think that's already underway in any case. So and I think it's one of the

things that the government feels very strongly about. But I think expropriation, the expropriation act, it does have some technical issues which could be sorted out. And I think the government would be willing to do that. And then also the race-based, the empowerment policies. I have picked up that, you know, there's a big debate in government about this, but there might be a willingness to tweak that as well. And I mean, this is for the benefit of the economy. I think at the moment we are in a bad situation. Our economic growth is slow. We have been looking for investment to boost it. We have been looking for more trade

and that will daint that. But I mean there is a positive. Last week the President Ramaphosa apparently had a phone call with President Donald Trump. As far as I understand it, President Ramaphosa made the call. How we got Donald Trump to pick up, I'm not sure, but I believe it involved some golf, you know, some old golf players, golf buddies of Trump. So there's progress, I think. But yeah, but it's low at the moment, the diplomatic relations, our ambassador got expelled, uh, I think last month, um, we don't have an ambassador there. There's no American ambassador here.

So it's, it's difficult. Can I ask you just before I let you go, we just have a few seconds left, but one of the things that we've seen in this country, when Donald Trump came after Canada, talking about 51st state and, and we don't need you. There was this huge rallying around the flag. You saw the sense of patriotism and people Donald Trump came after Canada, talking about 51st States and we don't need you. There's this huge rallying around the flag.

You saw the sense of patriotism and people kind of gathering and saying, this is who we are and this is what we're going to stand up against and this is what we're going to stand up for. Has that happened in South Africa right now? No, it's not quite that simple. I think there is, I mean, there is an anti-American sentiment. There was an anti-American sentiment even before, although we love the movies and the music. The soft power is strong. But there is a section of the population that are happy that,

that is happy that Trump is listening, white right wing section of the population. They feel that their complaints haven't been listened to, and they now feel that there is someone powerful listening to them. So there's been marches towards the American embassy saying, thank you, Trump, and some people who went and applied for the refugee status that he opened for white Afrikaans speaking farmers. And that was based on a fear of violence, just the general crime that's happening in South Africa. So it's divided, but yeah, no burning of American flags yet. Okay. Well, that's not really happening here either, but people are rallying around a Canadian flag.

Karine, thank you very much. That's positive. That is positive. Thank you so much for having me. Karine DiPlessi is the Southern African correspondent for the Africa Report.