Donald Trump has announced that he will slap 25% tariffs on imports from the European Union.

The US President declared that the bloc was formed to “screw” America and had “done a good job of it”.

He said: “We have made a decision, we’ll be announcing it very soon. It will be 25% generally speaking and that will be on cars and all other things.

“The EU is a different kind of case than Canada, they’ve really taken advantage of us in a different way.

“They don’t accept our cars, they don’t accept essentially our farm products, they use all sorts of reasons why not, and we accept everything from them.

“We have about a 300 billion dollar deficit with the EU. I love the countries of Europe, I guess I’m from there at some point a long time ago.

“But the EU was formed in order to screw the US that’s the purpose of it and they’ve done a good job of it but now I am President.”

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Mr Trump’s comments come as Sir Keir Starmer jets to Washington to meet him tomorrow, with the threat of trade tariffs one of the key issues for the pair to discuss.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves said she is confident the UK can boost trade with the US.

She said the announced increase in defence spending was “in our national interest” when asked if the UK expects Donald Trump to withdraw his threat of 20% tariffs in return.

She said: “In terms of the future trading relationship between the UK and the US, last time that President Trump was in the White House, trade and investment between our two countries increased, and I have every confidence that that can happen again.

“I know that the Prime Minister looks forward to talking about those issues and many others in his meetings with Donald Trump tomorrow.”