EU-US trade negotiations: where do we stand?
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Almost one month ago, US President Donald Trump announced a 90-day pause in imposing additional tariffs on all countries, excluding China. In response, the EU executive put its trade retaliation measures on hold for 90 days "to give negotiations a chance".
One month into this pause, are talks progressing? What is the EU's tactic? And is it possible no agreement will be found? We put these questions and more to Sven Van Kerckhoven, professor of political economics at Brussels university VUB.
We also head to Strasbourg for the European Parliament's plenary sessions, which start today and will see MEPs discuss burning topics from just peace in Ukraine to the power outage in Spain and Portugal. And finally, we explore where in Europe workers pay the highest, and lowest, income tax.
This episode of Radio Schuman is hosted and produced by Maïa de la Baume, with journalist and production assistant Lauren Walker. Audio editing was by Johan Breton. Music by Alexandre Jas.
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France 24
18 minutes ago
- France 24
What ICE's armed LA raids tell us about Trump's plans for mass deportations
On Friday, armed and masked United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents dressed in full tactical gear launched raids on workplaces and warehouses across downtown Los Angeles, handcuffing dozens of people suspected of living and working in the US without proper documentation and bundling them into unmarked armoured cars. The raids brought crowds of Angelenos onto the street to protest the arrests, with some demonstrators trying to use their bodies to block the armoured cars from leaving with the detainees. Local media reported that uniformed officers responded by throwing tear gas canisters and flash bang grenades into the crowd, leading to sporadic violent clashes between police and protesters. Four nights on, Angelenos are living a tale of two cities. In one, thousands of peaceful demonstrators including activists, advocates and union members have repeatedly come together to protest the escalating raids on the city's undocumented workers through civil disobedience, with crowds shutting down highways and gathering outside a federal detention centre Monday to call for the people held inside to be released. In the other, pieced together from images widely shared across social media of burning cars, anti-ICE graffiti and armoured riot police launching tear gas at masked protesters, Los Angeles is a city on the brink of obliteration. Describing the city as having fallen to 'violent, insurrectionist mobs', US President Donald Trump deployed more than 4,000 members of the state's National Guard – against the wishes of Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom – and ordered the Pentagon to mobilise 700 US Marines to 'support' federal immigration agents as they intensify their operations. It is the image of a burning city that may prepare the ground for the Trump administration's intensifying crackdown on undocumented migrants across the US – and the kind of armed force that may be brought to bear to see it through. Changing targets Stephanie Schwartz, assistant professor in international relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science, said that Friday's raids had already been orchestrated to send a very clear message. 'Why employ heavily armed agents in what amounts to a domestic raid in a workplace where you would not expect there to be armed resistance? The answer is the terror is the point, as is broadcasting it,' she said. Friday's raids – and a similar operation in San Diego a week earlier – have followed a significant shift in ICE's operations. Although the agency has previously said it has been prioritising the detention of undocumented immigrants suspected of having committed criminal activities or belonging to criminal groups, ICE has over the past week launched a series of raids on softer targets. Send in the Marines? Trump deploys troops to LA protests 43:10 In their raids on Los Angeles' fashion district, federal immigration agents set their sights on businesses suspected of employing undocumented workers. In sprawling Los Angeles, where one in three people are believed to have been born overseas and one in ten may lack legal residency status, it's not hard to see why the operation met resistance. On the same day as the Los Angeles raids, plainclothes ICE agents seized two men in a New York courthouse while they were leaving mandatory immigration hearings – a growing pattern of arrests that immigration lawyers warn could dissuade undocumented migrants from trying to address their residence status through the country's legal system. The rise in ICE raids on workplaces and immigration courts seems to have been triggered by a tense meeting between White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller and the agency's leadership late in May, where Miller – the chief architect of Trump's mass deportations policy – reportedly demanded that ICE agents ramp up their number of arrests to 3,000 people every day. To reach this figure, which would triple the number of people detained daily by the agency, Miller called on ICE to step up raids on workplaces suspected to be employing undocumented workers. ''Why aren't you at Home Depot? Why aren't you at 7-Eleven?'' a senior ICE official reported a furious Miller as saying, referring to a major US retailer and a convenience store chain. Increasing ICE's ability to carry out Trump's agenda of mass deportations is also at the heart of the president's "Big Beautiful Bill", which in its current form would allocate more than $150 billion in additional resources to immigration agencies. While a fraction of this would go to the immigration courts, the bulk is bookmarked for border wall construction, building new detention centres capable of holding more than 125,000 people and hiring 10,000 more ICE officers over the next five years. Internal enemies Schwartz said that the high-profile nature of Friday's raids served several priorities pushed by the Trump administration. 'One is to scare immigrants – to escalate the message that not only are immigrants not welcome, but that anyone who appears to be an immigrant could face violence from the state even as they're just going about their daily business,' she said. 'Second, the type of force used further paints immigrants as dangerous. Villainising immigrants as 'invaders' fuelling 'insurrection' is a central pillar of the government's legal justification for the immigration crackdown.' Trump has in part justified his policy of mass deportations by invoking the 1798 Alien Enemies Act – its first use in peacetime – under the argument that members of the Venezuelan criminal gang Tren de Aragua are part of an invasion of the US sponsored by foreign powers, allowing the US government to deport hundreds of men, shaved and shackled, to an El Salvador super-prison. More broadly, Schwartz said, the Trump administration has consistently accused undocumented migrants as being violent criminals. Inside El Salvador's 'Mega' Prison 11:37 'The administration's strategy is built on a legal fiction that paints migration as an 'invasion' and immigration control as therefore a matter of great national security,' she said. 'Several courts have ruled that the administration cannot justify this framing legally, but they have yet to face any consequences and therefore have not changed course.' With the arrival of thousands of heavily armed troops and the promise to double down on immigration raids likely to only exacerbate the situation, Schwartz said that the Trump administration's show of force had marked a new chapter in its willingness to conduct its campaign against undocumented migrants on a wartime footing. 'The protests in LA presented an opportunity for the administration to test their ability to mobilise coercive power against the domestic population – including not just the National Guard but also the Marines – on the same grounds,' she said.
Euronews
an hour ago
- Euronews
Macron says France will ban social media for under-15s if EU does not
President Emmanuel Macron said on Tuesday that France will ban access to social media for children under the age of 15 within "a few months" if this is not done at a European level. "We must ban social media for those under 15," Macron told the public television channel France 2 after a school staff member was stabbed by a 14-year-old student at the entrance to a secondary school in Nogent. "I'm giving us a few months to get the European mobilisation going. start doing it in France. We can't wait," he said. A pupil fatally stabbed a school staff member during a routine bag check at the middle school in eastern France, officials said. The teenager was arrested at the scene. A police officer assisting with the bag checks sustained minor injuries while apprehending the suspect, who used the same knife in both attacks, according to the National Gendarmerie. It's not immediately clear whether the attack was linked to anything the student had seen on social media, or why local media had made the link. This is a developing story and our journalists are working on further updates. The EU is planning to borrow €150 billion on the financial markets for its new lending instrument Security Action for Europe (SAFE). It is one of the pillars of the Readiness 2030 plan, which aims to mobilise €800 billion for defence investment by the end of the decade. "Russia's war in Ukraine and the EU's attempt to support Kyiv really highlighted the dependencies and shortcomings of the EU's defence industrial base and how ill-prepared we were in the event of being forced into a conventional war," said Alice Tidey, a Euronews reporter who covered the announcement. "SAFE is about firing up European weapons manufacturing lines by getting member states to buy strategically and together so that the industry becomes less fragmented and quicker to produce, and our armies, more crucially, become more interoperable. And of course, also, it's about putting prices down," she added. The investments should boost production and procurement of air and missile defence, artillery systems, missiles and ammunition, as well as other crucial military equipment to deal with security threats, including critical infrastructure protection and cyber, artificial intelligence and electronic warfare. "It gives countries the possibility to find money to buy military equipment. It's a beginning and I think it's very good sign," said German MEP Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann from the Renew group. The parliamentarian who chairs the European Parliament's Security and Defense Committee also highlighted that some of the technology could have dual use and be useful for civilian purposes. Euronews spoke to residents in Rome and opinions were divided. 'We need to defend ourselves and the threat is at our doorstep,' said one . 'They shouldn't increase spending for a war that won't happen. This is not our war,' said another resident in the Italian capital, referring to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. In Berlin, the same divisions were evident: 'If the aim is to start another arms race, then I'm not in favour,' said one resident of the German city. 'I'm all for a joint European defence effort, but without going into debt,' said another. Governments will have to repay over 45 years and they can also activate the Stability and Growth Pact's National Escape Clause, which stipulates that budget deficits cannot exceed 3% of GDP. Under SAFE, governments can exceed this figure by 1.5% per year, provided that the amount is spent solely on defence. More than half of member states have requested activation from the European Commission. To receive loans, governments must meet certain conditions: 65% of the value of each piece of military equipment must be produced in one of the 27 EU member states, Ukraine and the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) members Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway. The remaining 35% can also come from any third country in the world. The common procurement can include EU candidate countries, such as the Western Balkans, and third countries with bilateral security and defence partnerships, such as Japan, South Korea and the United Kingdom. However, the EU remains highly dependent on weapons purchased from the US and the increased investment could be a clear indication of the bloc's commitment to becoming more autonomous, something that President Donald Trump has demanded in the framework of NATO. "I'm optimistic that the President of the US will realise what we are now starting to do," said Strack-Zimmermann. The EU is planning to raise more funds, with the European Commission proposing to use part of the Cohesion Funds, which are intended for regional development. The European Investment Bank will also try to mobilise private funds for this area for the first time. Watch the video here! Journalist: Isabel Marques da Silva Content production: Pilar Montero López Video production: Zacharia Vigneron Graphism: Loredana Dumitru Editorial coordination: Ana Lázaro Bosch and Jeremy Fleming-Jones
Euronews
an hour ago
- Euronews
Is debt justified to increase defence investments?
President Emmanuel Macron said on Tuesday that France will ban access to social media for children under the age of 15 within "a few months" if this is not done at a European level. "We must ban social media for those under 15," Macron told the public television channel France 2 after a school staff member was stabbed by a 14-year-old student at the entrance to a secondary school in Nogent. "I'm giving us a few months to get the European mobilisation going. start doing it in France. We can't wait," he said. A pupil fatally stabbed a school staff member during a routine bag check at the middle school in eastern France, officials said. The teenager was arrested at the scene. A police officer assisting with the bag checks sustained minor injuries while apprehending the suspect, who used the same knife in both attacks, according to the National Gendarmerie. It's not immediately clear whether the attack was linked to anything the student had seen on social media, or why local media had made the link. This is a developing story and our journalists are working on further updates. The EU is planning to borrow €150 billion on the financial markets for its new lending instrument Security Action for Europe (SAFE). It is one of the pillars of the Readiness 2030 plan, which aims to mobilise €800 billion for defence investment by the end of the decade. "Russia's war in Ukraine and the EU's attempt to support Kyiv really highlighted the dependencies and shortcomings of the EU's defence industrial base and how ill-prepared we were in the event of being forced into a conventional war," said Alice Tidey, a Euronews reporter who covered the announcement. "SAFE is about firing up European weapons manufacturing lines by getting member states to buy strategically and together so that the industry becomes less fragmented and quicker to produce, and our armies, more crucially, become more interoperable. And of course, also, it's about putting prices down," she added. The investments should boost production and procurement of air and missile defence, artillery systems, missiles and ammunition, as well as other crucial military equipment to deal with security threats, including critical infrastructure protection and cyber, artificial intelligence and electronic warfare. "It gives countries the possibility to find money to buy military equipment. It's a beginning and I think it's very good sign," said German MEP Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann from the Renew group. The parliamentarian who chairs the European Parliament's Security and Defense Committee also highlighted that some of the technology could have dual use and be useful for civilian purposes. Euronews spoke to residents in Rome and opinions were divided. 'We need to defend ourselves and the threat is at our doorstep,' said one . 'They shouldn't increase spending for a war that won't happen. This is not our war,' said another resident in the Italian capital, referring to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. In Berlin, the same divisions were evident: 'If the aim is to start another arms race, then I'm not in favour,' said one resident of the German city. 'I'm all for a joint European defence effort, but without going into debt,' said another. Governments will have to repay over 45 years and they can also activate the Stability and Growth Pact's National Escape Clause, which stipulates that budget deficits cannot exceed 3% of GDP. Under SAFE, governments can exceed this figure by 1.5% per year, provided that the amount is spent solely on defence. More than half of member states have requested activation from the European Commission. To receive loans, governments must meet certain conditions: 65% of the value of each piece of military equipment must be produced in one of the 27 EU member states, Ukraine and the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) members Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway. The remaining 35% can also come from any third country in the world. The common procurement can include EU candidate countries, such as the Western Balkans, and third countries with bilateral security and defence partnerships, such as Japan, South Korea and the United Kingdom. However, the EU remains highly dependent on weapons purchased from the US and the increased investment could be a clear indication of the bloc's commitment to becoming more autonomous, something that President Donald Trump has demanded in the framework of NATO. "I'm optimistic that the President of the US will realise what we are now starting to do," said Strack-Zimmermann. The EU is planning to raise more funds, with the European Commission proposing to use part of the Cohesion Funds, which are intended for regional development. The European Investment Bank will also try to mobilise private funds for this area for the first time. Watch the video here! Journalist: Isabel Marques da Silva Content production: Pilar Montero López Video production: Zacharia Vigneron Graphism: Loredana Dumitru Editorial coordination: Ana Lázaro Bosch and Jeremy Fleming-Jones A second group of Ukrainian and Russian prisoners of war were returned home on Tuesday as part of a deal made during direct talks in Istanbul on 2 June. The exchange began on Monday for soldiers aged between 18-25, focusing on seriously wounded and sick Ukrainian service personnel, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Telegram, without specifying the exact number. Among them were soldiers captured over three years ago in the battle for Mariupol, the Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War said on Telegram. All of those freed had severe injuries and illnesses, including amputated limbs and vision problems, it said. Amina Ivanchenko was reunited Monday with her husband, a POW for 18 months, in the initial release. She said was grateful to Ukrainian officials for supporting her. "My struggle was much easier thanks to them. Our country will definitely return everyone. Glory to Ukraine! Thank you!" Anastasia Nahorna waited in the Chernyhiv region to see if her husband, who has been missing for eight months, was among those being released in the latest swap. "This pain is more unbearable every day," she said. "I really want to hear some news, because since the moment of his disappearance, unfortunately, there has been no information. Is he alive? or maybe in captivity? Has someone seen him?" Russia's Defence Ministry said it had also received a second group of released soldiers as part of the deal. The Russian servicemen arrived on the territory of Belarus, where they are receiving psychological and medical assistance, the ministry said in a statement, without specifying the number of exchanged soldiers. All servicemen will be transported to Russia for further treatment and rehabilitation, the statement added. A similar exchange was announced for the bodies of fallen soldiers held by both sides, although no schedule has been released. Two recent rounds of direct peace talks between Russian and Ukrainian delegations in Istanbul have yielded no significant breakthroughs beyond pledges to swap prisoners as well as thousands of their dead and seriously wounded troops.
