French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire
European Union countries are completely united on trade and will not be divided by the threat of further U.S. import tariffs, French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said on Friday.
Asked about the threat that U.S. President Donald Trump could extend increased import tariffs from steel and aluminium to EU cars, Le Maire said EU states were determined to maintain a united stance.
"Nobody will divide France and Germany never, never, never, and nobody will divide the EU member states. Everybody is aware that the unity of the European countries is the right response to the raise of tariffs," he told reporters before a meeting of EU finance ministers.
U.S. President Donald Trump hailed a personal victory at a NATO summit on Thursday, saying allies had sharply increased defence spending commitments after he provoked a crisis session with a tirade at European leaders."I told people that I would be very unhappy if they didn't up their commitments," an ebullient president told reporters after the second day of the Brussels meeting, when NATO leaders huddled with Trump to try to defuse a crisis."I let them know that I was extremely unhappy," he said, but added that the talks had ended on the best of terms: "It all came together at the end. It was a little tough for a little while."Officials at the meeting said Trump had shocked many present and broke with diplomatic protocol by addressing German Chancellor Merkel by her first name, telling her: "Angela, you need to do something about this". Most officials and the invited leaders of non-NATO Afghanistan and Georgia were ushered out.Trump tirade sends NATO leaders into crisis sessionOthers in the room, including the Lithuanian president whose country is among the most nervous of Russian ambitions, denied a suggestion that Trump had threatened to quit the alliance.When asked about that, Trump said he believed he could do that without Congressional approval but it was "not necessary".Instead, he said, the other 28 allies had agreed to increase their defence spending more quickly to meet a NATO target of two percent of their national income within a few years. The current commitment is to reach two percent by 2024 but with get-out terms that would allow some to stretch it out to 2030.Trump stressed that NATO's budget had been unfair to the United States but now he was sure it would be fair. Allies would be increasing spending by $33 billion or more, he added.He also said he thought spending of 4 percent on defence -- similar to the U.S. level -- would be the right level.Trump keeps up spending demands at NATO but turns on charm"TOTAL CREDIT TO ME""We have a very powerful, very strong NATO, much stronger than it was two days ago," he said. Citing the alliance's Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, he said: "Secretary Stoltenberg gives us total credit, meaning me, I guess, in this case, total credit. Because I said it was unfair.""The numbers have gone up like a rocket ship ... and they're going to be going up further," he said. "Everybody in that room got along and they agreed to pay more and they agreed to pay it more quickly."Merkel said: "We had a very intense summit."Trump had opened the first day of talks in Brussels on Wednesday with a public diatribe against Germany, the second biggest state in the Western defence alliance, criticising its reliance on Russian gas imports and failure to spend more on defence.After Trump's spending demands, NATO summit turns to AfghanistanThe mood had appeared to have calmed as the summit went into its second day, focusing on operations beyond Europe. But, several sources said, Trump instead reopened in strong terms his demand that other countries spend more immediately."The language was much tougher today," one source told Reuters. "His harshest words were directed at Germany, including by calling her Angela --'You, Angela.'"As well as Merkel, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and Charles Michel, the prime minister of Belgium, were singled out by Trump for undershooting on their spending targets when U.S. taxpayers, funding a defence budget worth about 3.6 percent of their national income, foot much of NATO's bills.Video: Trump says 'no more nuclear weapons' would be ultimate goal of Putin meetingTrump says 'ultimate deal' with Putin would be world without nuclear weaponsPresident Donald Trump on Thursday said the best agreement he could have with Russian President Vladimir Putin would be one where there would be no nuclear weapons in the world.Asked what would be the best possible result from his meeting with Putin, Trump said: "What would be the ultimate? Let's see. No more nuclear weapons anywhere in the world, no more wars, no more problems, no more conflicts. ... That would be my ultimate."Trump is due to meet with Putin on Monday in Helsinki.US says disrupts Iran finance operation in UAE to squeeze TehranIran treating U.S. with more respectU.S. President Donald Trump said he expected Iran to call him one day with an offer to allay U.S. security concerns, saying Tehran was treating Washington with much more respect after he pulled the U.S. out of a nuclear deal."They're treating us with much more respect right now than they did in the past," Trump told reporters after a summit of NATO leaders in Brussels."I know they're having a lot of problems and their economy is collapsing. But I will tell you this: at a certain point they're going to call me they're going to say 'Let's make a deal'. They're feeling a lot of pain right now." EU Commission cuts euro zone growth forecasts, blames trade warsU.S. will hit EU cars if no good faith in trade talks U.S. President Donald Trump warned the European Union on Thursday that the United States would act to restrict entry for European cars if the bloc failed to treat his country fairly on trade.Trump, who is set to host European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker in Washington this month, repeated his line that the EU was treating the United States unfairly on trade, shutting out U.S. farmers."That'll change also and I think we'll see that because on the 25th of July they're coming in to start negotiations with me. We'll see," he told a news conference at the end of a meeting of NATO leaders."And if they don't negotiate in good faith we'll do something having to do with all the millions of cars that are coming into our country and being taxed at a virtually zero level, at a very low level... I think it's been a very effective way of negotiating, but I'm not negotiating, I just want fairness for the United States," he said. 
Trump claims victory after forcing NATO crisis talks
Financial firms in Britain which need a base in the European Union after Brexit should apply for a licence this month in case of a disorderly UK departure, the EU securities watchdog said on Thursday.The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) said it wants to raise awareness among UK firms to the possibility that Britain may leave the EU next March with no transition deal in place."As there is no assurance that a transition period will be agreed upon, entities need to consider the scenario where a hard Brexit would take place on 30 March 2019," ESMA said in a statement.Without a transition, financial firms such as trading platforms and asset managers based in Britain may see their connections to EU customers disrupted.Some trading firms like Cboe Europe and the London Stock Exchange's Turquoise platforms have already applied for EU licences with regulators in Amsterdam to avoid this potential problem."On 30 March 2019, firms must have a fully authorised legal entity located in the EU27 to continue providing services in the EU27," ESMA said.The watchdog has already seen an increase in the number of licence requests to national regulators in the EU."Some NCAs (national regulators) have already been clear to entities that, unless an application is received in the month of June/July, there is no guarantee that authorisation will be achievable before 29 March 2019," ESMA added. 
EU tells UK financial firms time running out for Brexit licences
U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday pressed home a new demand that allies more than double defence spending, but his European counterparts sought to avoid more tension at a NATO summit, saying the president was friendlier than expected.Leaders' low expectations showed the extent of European frustration with Trump's "America first" policies as they headed into a second day of talks with the 29 members of the Western military alliance, set to focus mainly on ending the long war in Afghanistan.Trump took to Twitter to say publicly what he told NATO leaders privately on Wednesday, calling on all allies to meet a commitment agreed in 2014 to spend 2 percent of economic output on defence to counter threats ranging from Russia's military modernisation to militant attacks on European cities."All NATO Nations must meet their 2% commitment, and that must ultimately go to 4%!" Trump tweeted an hour before the second day of the summit got underway.After Trump's spending demands, NATO summit turns to AfghanistanDespite the first day's haranguing of allies for failing to meet spending targets and accusing Germany of being a prisoner to Russian energy, Trump was mild-mannered at a private dinner on Wednesday and avoided any outbursts that many NATO diplomats had feared."He was in a good mood, he said Europe was a continent he appreciated," Luxembourg's Prime Minister Xavier Bettel told reporters."We didn't know what to expect, it was a positive outcome," he said of the dinner in a Brussels park, where leaders were treated to an acrobatic display and saxophone music.French President Emmanuel Macron said the summit atmosphere was "much calmer than everyone had said" and he saw a will to maintain the unity of the alliance, while Croatian President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic said Trump was "constructive".Canada to command new NATO mission in IraqFrom abandoning the Iran nuclear deal to putting higher tariffs on European Union steel imports and threatening more on cars, Trump has undermined European priorities in the Middle East, on free trade and on combating climate change.While Germany, Europe's biggest economy, has been in Trump's sights, Britain was keen to make the most of its status as one of the few NATO nations that meet the spending target and sided with Washington's position that allies should spend more."We think President Trump is basically right, that the foundation of a successful alliance is fair contributions by all parties," said Britain's new foreign minister Jeremy Hunt.US former top diplomat blasts Trump's NATO remarksHELSINKI RISKAt the NATO summit, normally a ceremonial affair to cement an alliance that dates back almost seven decades, officials had hoped to limit discussions to strictly military business, especially as deterring Russia is a rare unifying factor after Moscow's 2014 annexation of Ukraine's Crimea.Ukraine's Petro Poroshenko met NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg and spoke at the decision-making North Atlantic Council session with leaders, although his hopes of joining the alliance are, for the time being, thwarted by Russia's incursion into eastern Ukraine and its support for rebels there.Under NATO rules, countries with armed conflicts on their territory cannot join the Western alliance.The U.S. president will travel to Britain later on Thursday and then to Helsinki to see Russia's Vladimir Putin on Monday, a meeting that NATO diplomats say will be the true test of Trump's commitment to the Western alliance.Any deal with Putin to call off U.S. exercises in the Baltics or withdraw U.S. troops from the region would be a severe blow to the West's policy towards Moscow, although diplomats, officials and analysts stressed such outcomes were only a worst-case scenario not based on any official position.Still, three senior U.S. officials told Reuters that no one in the Pentagon, including Secretary of Defence Jim Mattis, knows what Trump might say in Helsinki."The president came out of Singapore saying he'd ended the nuclear threat from North Korea," said one U.S. official, referring to Trump's meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un."Who's to say he won't come out of Helsinki saying he and Putin agreed that Russia no longer poses a threat to the rest of Europe?"
Trump keeps up spending demands at NATO but turns on charm