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U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has offered his take on President Trump's threat of a 50% tariff on the European Union on June 1, with Bessent saying he hopes it'll
"light a fire under the E.U." "I believe the president believes that the E.U. proposals have not been of the same quality that we've seen from our other important trading
partners," Bessent said in a Fox News interview. "So I think this is a response just to the E.U.’s pace." Bessent added: “The E.U. has a collective action problem here.
There’s 27 countries, but they're being represented by this one group in Brussels, so some of the feedback that I've been getting is that the underlying countries don't even
know what the E.U. is negotiating on their behalf.”