Trump’s tariffs will turn EU economy into ‘decaying corpse’ – Medvedev

Unlike Brussels, Moscow can bide its time amid the emerging trade war, the former Russian president has said

The US imposition of “reciprocal” tariffs on EU exports has doomed the bloc’s economy, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has said.

This week, US President Donald Trump announced sweeping tariffs in an attempt to improve America’s balance of trade, accusing the country’s economic partners of exploiting access to its consumer market through protectionist policies and currency manipulation.

Medvedev, now deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council, remarked on Thursday that while the move seriously disrupts global commerce, Russia will be largely unaffected, as its trade with the US is virtually nonexistent.

“No need for knee-jerk reactions,” he posted on social media. “We should take a seat on the shore and wait for the enemy’s corpse to float by. In this case, the decaying corpse of the EU economy.”

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The expression, which advises patient inaction, has been attributed by Western authors, including Umberto Eco, to various Eastern sources and may be a misinterpretation of a remark by Chinese philosopher Confucius, which does not mention dead bodies.

Outgoing German Economy Minister Robert Habeck has compared the potential impact to the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022. Then too, “something new was happening, and we were not prepared in Europe to cope with the challenge,” he said during a press conference on Thursday.

Many other European politicians and media outlets have described the economic fallout from the tariffs as disastrous for member states. Washington, however, has warned that any retaliatory steps would be met with further measures. 

Medvedev has previously called out Brussels for being incompetent and irrationally hostile toward Russia. In an effort to punish Moscow over the Ukraine conflict, Brussels has sought to cut off energy imports from the country entirely. The economic bloc has also imposed sweeping sanctions, significantly reducing direct trade. 

Critics of the policy, including Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and his Slovak counterpart, Robert Fico, argue that it has led to a dramatic decline in the competitiveness of EU products, inflicting substantial economic damage.