Lagarde Says US Tariff Moves Risk Upsetting Equilibrium With EU

Alexander Weber

Mon, February 23, 2026 at 2:06 AM GMT+9 2 min read

(Bloomberg) – President Donald Trump’s latest tariff moves risk upsetting the previously negotiated “equilibrium” between the European Union and the US and could pose a new headwind to the economy, European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde said on Sunday.

It’s “critically important” to have clarity about the future of the trade relationship, Lagarde told CBS’s after the US Supreme Court struck down Trump’s use of an emergency-powers law to impose his so-called reciprocal tariffs around the world.

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“You want to know the rules of the road before you get in the car,” Lagarde said. “It’s the same with trade.”

Photographer: Alex Kraus/Bloomberg

Enraged by the ruling on Friday, Trump initially imposed a 10% global tariff on foreign goods only to raise this to 15% a day later. European Union lawmakers will hold an emergency meeting Monday to reassess the bloc’s trade deal with the US.

The European Parliament’s trade chief on Sunday said he’ll propose freezing ratification of the EU’s trade deal with the US in light of the “chaos” on the other side of the Atlantic.

“If it shakes the whole equilibrium which people in the trade had got used to — because they continued trading after the April decisions and the July trade arrangement between the US and Europe — but to sort of shake it up again is going to bring about disruptions in the business for sure,” Lagarde said, while noting that the previously negotiated agreement included carve-outs and exemptions.

US consumers haven’t been spared the “pain” of tariffs, she said.

Asked about her own future as head of the ECB, amid speculation she’ll step aside before her term ends in October 2027, Lagarde said she’s “riveted to a mission.”

“My baseline is that it will take until the end of my term,” she said, repeating comments she made last week on the matter.

The Financial Times reported on Wednesday that Lagarde will leave the ECB before the end of her eight-year mandate to allow President Emmanuel Macron to play a role in replacing her ahead of French elections that could usher in the far right.

Lagarde told CBS that “electors in any country in the world make their choices, and those choices have to be respected.”

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