Notable examples of sluggish processes include the recent landmark trade agreement with Latin America’s Mercosur bloc that has been in the works for two decades. Meanwhile, Turkey applied to join the bloc in 1987 and its application is still pending.
“I got a call from the head of a major airline,” President Trump recalled. “He said. Can you help us? Landing in Europe is brutal. They charge us a fee for everything. How does it compare to China? And he said, ‘It’s much worse.’”
His friends in the EU “want better competition, but we can’t compete if we don’t get through the approval process quickly,” he added.
Trump also used the opportunity to blast the EU’s approach to the United States. “They don’t take our foreign products, they don’t take our cars, but they send us millions of cars,” he said.
Trump said the bloc was treating the United States “very badly and very unfairly,” noting the recent multibillion-euro fines imposed on Google for anti-competitive business practices and Apple for violating state aid rules.
Elena Giordano contributed reporting.
