“Today, we stand up for the American worker and finally put America first,” commented US president Donald Trump at a press conference dubbed “Liberation Day.” “We can really be very rich. We can be so much richer than any country, it’s not even believable, but we’re getting smart,” added Trump.

US treasury secretary Scott Bessent on Wednesday advised “all countries not to retaliate” against the tariffs put in place by the Trump administration, on pain of “escalation.” “Relax, take the hit, and wait to see how the situation develops. Because if you retaliate, the situation will escalate,” he warned on Fox News.

The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, said on Thursday morning that the new tariffs were “a major blow” to the global economy. Regretting the decision “deeply,” she said that the Europeans were “ready to react” and were already working on “a new package of countermeasures” in the event that negotiations with the US administration, fervently desired by the EU, should fail.

The US tariffs “do not comply with international trade rules and seriously damage the rights and interests of the parties concerned,” the Chinese ministry of commerce denounced in a statement. “China urges the United States to immediately cancel the unilateral tariffs and appropriately resolve disputes with its trading partners through fair dialogue,” the ministry said, adding that the measures “jeopardise global economic development.”

This article was originally published in .