Trade talks with European Commission

‘No, no, no’: Trump tries out Juncker’s accent

US president gives details of his trade talks with European Commission chief.

By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN

U.S. President Donald Trump was riffing in the Rose Garden about his prowess in trade talks when he decided to try out his best Jean-Claude Juncker routine.

“Jean-Claude, a great business person, head of the European Union,” Trump said. “Jean-Claude my friend. I’d say, ‘Jean-Claude, we want to make a deal.'”

“He goes, ‘No, no, no. We are very happy,'” Trump said, slightly rolling the “r” and dropping the “h” and drawing out the “pee” in “happy” for emphasis.

It was more a failed imitation of Inspector Jacques Clouseau than an impersonation of the European Commission president, whose accent, like his native Luxembourg, tends to fall somewhere between France and Germany, bordering on Belgium.

There was also quite a bit of hyperbole, with Trump repeating the claim that his tariffs on steel and aluminum and threats of additional levies on cars intimidated Juncker and the EU into agreeing to new trade negotiations.

Trump’s affection for Juncker appears to be growing. Recently, he called Juncker a “tough cookie” but also “nasty” and “the kind of guy I want negotiating for me.”

But his praise has also been laced with disdain, insisting that Juncker “crumbled” and the EU came begging for negotiations because of fear over the additional tariffs.

In fact, the EU stared Trump down and only entered into talks with the U.S. president after slapping down retaliatory tariffs, including on signature goods made in Republican strongholds, like Kentucky bourbon.

Alternative facts aside, Trump used his event in the Rose Garden, where he trumpeted his deal with Canada and Mexico to replace NAFTA, as an opportunity to repeat his claim that he had brought the EU to its knees, and was fighting back against a hugely unfair trade deficit.

“The European Union, it has been very tough on the United States,” Trump said. “Last year and for many years, they have lost in the vicinity of $150 billion a year. They have massive trade barriers. And they didn’t want to come. They didn’t want to talk.”

Then he launched into his bit about Juncker.

It is unclear why Trump referred to Juncker as a “great businessperson.” Juncker has never worked in business. He studied to become a lawyer, but never worked in law either. He went directly into government, eventually serving as prime minister of Luxembourg for almost two decades. He resigned in 2013 and the next year was appointed Commission president.

“He goes ‘no, no, no. We are very happy,'” Trump said. “I said, ‘You may be happy but I am not happy because we have one of the worst deals of any group, we have one of the worst deals with the European Union.’ And they just didn’t want to come because they were happy with the deal. I said but we’re not happy with the deal and finally after, you know, going through a whole process, I said look we’re just going to put a tax of 20 percent on all of the millions of Mercedes and BMWs, all of the cars, the millions and millions of cars that they sell here.”

Trump then launched into a complaint about how American farmers cannot sell most of their products in Europe, before closing on an optimistic note.

“So I announced that we are going to put a 20 percent tariff, could be 25, on their cars coming in and they immediately called and said we’d like to start negotiations,” Trump said. “And we’re having a successful negotiation. Well see what happens. Who knows? I always say, ‘who knows?’ But we’ll see. I have a feeling we’ll be successful.”