“But you need both hands to clap,” Maros Sefcovic, the European Commission’s trade minister, said on Wednesday. “The disruption caused by tariffs is avoidable if the U.S. administration accepts our extended hand and works with us to strike a deal.”

Mr. Trump reacted to the European Union’s move on Thursday, calling it “nasty” in a social media post and threatening to hit back with a 200 percent tariff on Champagne, wine and other alcohol from France and across the European Union if the bloc does not retreat from its tariffs on whiskey.

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