Trump and EU's von der Leyen announce trade deal
"It's a very powerful deal, it's a very big deal, it's the biggest of all the deals," Trump said.
During a press conference before their meeting, the two leaders said that there was a 50-50 chance they would reach a framework of a deal.
"I'd like to make a deal, I think it's good for both, but I'd say "50-50," Trump told reporters on Sunday during a press conference in Scotland, alongside von der Leyen.
Trump said during the same press conference before the meeting that he had "three or four sticking points," without disclosing specific details on his concerns.
The Sunday meeting marked a pivotal moment for Trump, as the 27-member bloc is the U.S.'s largest trading partner.
"This is the biggest deal, people don't realize," Trump said Sunday.
The announcement comes after Trump, in a letter earlier this month, said the EU would face duties of 30% on exports to the U.S. as part of his "reciprocal tariffs." That rate was widely seen as a level that would be detrimental to businesses and the economies of both the U.S. and EU nations.
In response to Trump's letter, the EU said it was preparing to impose countermeasures if necessary, while maintaining that it worked towards a negotiated solution.
The bloc eyed retaliatory duties on a wide range of U.S. goods, and other measures, like the EU's "Anti-Coercion Instrument."
Brussels was seeking to negotiate exemptions or lower rates for certain key industries that had been particularly hard hit by sectoral tariffs. In exchange, the EU was widely expected to accept some level of blanket tariffs.
The U.S.-EU trade relationship was valued at 1.68 trillion euros ($1.97 trillion) when taking into account both services and goods trading in 2024, according to the European Council.
While the EU recorded a surplus on goods trading, it noted a deficit in the services realm. This left the EU with an overall trade surplus of around 50 billion euros with the U.S. last year.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Bloomberg
6 minutes ago
- Bloomberg
OPEC+ Confirms Bumper Oil Output Boost
Good morning. OPEC+ agrees to another output increase. Swiss markets get a chance to react to Donald Trump's tariffs. And our luxury reporter shares countryside escapes close to London. Listen to the day's top stories. OPEC+ agreed to another major output increase, stoking concerns about global oversupply just as the US-led trade war may be exacting a toll on economic growth and energy consumption. Here's our explainer about how OPEC+ and tariffs are driving down prices of the commodity.
19 minutes ago
Asian markets are mixed after Wall St tumbles following poor US jobs report
BANGKOK -- Shares in Asia are mixed after Wall Street had its worst day since May following the release of weak U.S. jobs data. Markets in Asia had already reacted on Friday to U.S. President Donald Trump's announcement of sweeping tariffs on imports from many U.S. trading partners, posting moderate losses. The new import duties are set to take effect on Thursday. Tokyo's Nikkei 225 index lost 1.6%, bouncing back from bigger losses, to 40,134.97. The Hang Seng in Hong Kong edged 0.2% higher, to 24,589.21, while the Shanghai Composite index was nearly unchanged at 3,562.18. In South Korea, the Kospi surged 0.7% to 3,140.92. Australia's S&P/ASX 200 shed 0.2% to 8,643.00. Investors' worries about a weakening U.S. economy deepened after the latest report on job growth in the U.S. showed employers added just 73,000 jobs in July. That is sharply lower than economists expected. The Labor Department also reported that revisions shaved a stunning 258,000 jobs off May and June payrolls. 'The labor market, once a pillar of resilience, is now looking more like a late-cycle casualty, as soft data begin to replace soft landings in market discourse,' Stephen Innes of SPI Asset Management said in a commentary. U.S. futures edged 0.3% higher, however, early Monday. On Friday, the S&P 500 fell 1.6%, its biggest decline since May 21 and its fourth straight loss. It closed at 6,238.01, posting a 2.4% loss for the week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1.2% to 43,588.58, while the Nasdaq composite fell 2.2% to finish at 20,650.13. Internet retail giant Amazon fell 8.3%, despite reporting encouraging profit and sales for its most recent quarter. Technology behemoth Apple fell 2.5% after also beating Wall Street's profit and revenue forecasts. Both companies face tougher operating conditions because of tariffs, with Apple forecasting a $1.1 billion hit from the fees in the current quarter. Trump's decision to order the immediate firing of the head of the government agency that produces the monthly jobs figures raised concern over whether there might be interference in future data. The surprisingly weak hiring numbers led investors to step up their expectations the Federal Reserve may cut interest rates in September. The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 4.21% from 4.39% just before the hiring report was released. That's a big move for the bond market. The yield on the two-year Treasury, which more closely tracks expectations for Fed actions, plunged to 3.68% from 3.94% just prior to the report's release. The Fed has held rates steady since December. A cut in rates would give the job market and overall economy a boost, but it could also risk fueling inflation, which is hovering stubbornly above the central bank's 2% target. An update on Thursday for the Fed's preferred measure of inflation showed that prices ticked higher in June, rising to 2.6% from 2.4% in May. The Fed held rates steady again at its most recent meeting this week. Fed Chair Jerome Powell has been pressured by Trump to cut the benchmark rate, though that decision isn't his to make alone, but belongs to the 12 members of the Federal Open Market Committee. Businesses, investors and the Fed have been operating under a cloud of uncertainty from Trump's tariff policy. Companies have been warning investors that unpredictable policies, with some tariffs already in effect while others change or get extended, make it difficult to plan ahead. Walmart, Procter & Gamble and many others also have warned about import taxes raising costs, eating into profits and raising prices for consumers. In other dealings early Monday, U.S, benchmark crude oil lost 18 cents to $67.15 per barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, fell 23 cents to $69.44 per barrel. The U.S. dollar rose to 147.80 Japanese yen from 147.26 yen. The euro weakened to $1.1577 from $1.1598.
Business of Fashion
25 minutes ago
- Business of Fashion
China's Fast-Fashion Capital Slows Down Under Trump's Trade War
Lingering at a day market for labourers in Panyu, an urban village on the outskirts of Guangzhou, Ms Qiu looks dejected. She is looking for a local factory that will hire her for the day to sew clothes – cheap tops and dresses that will be churned out on to China's e-commerce platforms, or bundled up for export to western shoppers. But she is not having much luck. 'The whole industry is struggling, and now there is a high tariff on Chinese goods because of the trade war. Many foreign clients have decreased their orders from China,' she says, declining to give her first name. Guangzhou, China's southern metropolis and the capital of Guangdong province, is home to nearly 20 million people. It is also the humming, whirring and buzzing heart of the global fast fashion industry. In its urban villages, ramshackle settlements that have been absorbed into the city's sprawl, millions of workers toil day and night in informal workshops to produce cheap garments. In one small, crowded factory, women sit behind sewing machines next to teetering mountains of starched black tutus. In another, pink denim jeans destined to be sold on fast fashion website Shein are piled high on every available worktop. Every morning, workers gather in informal labour markets like the one in Panyu to see if they can find work for the day sewing on hundreds of buttons, or ironing hundreds of collars. Depending on the complexity of the task, workers earn between one and 10 yuan per item, toiling for long hours in cramped conditions. 'This is hard-earned money,' says a worker in his 60s in Datang, another urban village about ten miles north of Panyu. Ironing jackets at 8am, before packaging them up to be exported, the man, who declined to give his name, was part-way through a shift that had started at 11pm the night before. He earned two yuan per jacket, he said. More than a dozen garment workers interviewed by the Guardian all said that a normal working day was 10 to 12 hours, with some saying they only took one rest day each month. 'Little Room for Profit' While China's domestic e-commerce market has boomed in recent years, it is overseas orders that keep the factory lights on. Around one-quarter of the more than $100bn of textiles and apparel imported to the US came from China last year. Guangdong alone exported more than $7bn, according to data from the Global Trade & Industry Growth Lab by Sinoimex, a commercial data firm. But in April, Donald Trump, the US president, launched a trade war with China, which sent shockwaves through the global economy. Tariffs on Chinese goods reached 145 percent, with China responding with similar duties and trade restrictions, before the two countries agreed to a 90-day pause in May. With a 12 August deadline looming to reach a deal, workers in Guangzhou are wondering whether or not they'll be able to keep selling clothes to Americans. In Panyu, Yang Ruiping has run his small clothes factory, which specialises in tops and employs about 20 people, for two decades. About 30 percent of his orders are exported, mostly to Shein and Amazon, down from more than 50 percent before the pandemic. Although the pause in the trade war has eased the pressure on his business slightly, he still has 'little confidence in the US'. 'In the recent US-China trade war, if the tariffs go up, we need to lower the production costs to combat it,' he says. 'It leaves little room for profit'. With no room to cut wages any lower, Yang says he is already losing money on every top he sells. He keeps accepting the orders in order to keep the factory open, but with the domestic market becoming increasingly competitive, he is aware he might not be able to operate much longer. Shein is everywhere in Panyu. The China-founded, Singapore-headquartered company revolutionised the garment industry in Guangzhou, allowing small manufacturers like Yang to sell directly to western customers, and offering shoppers rock-bottom prices. While big high street brands operate larger, dedicated factories, Shein places small batch orders directly with independent manufacturers, ramping up production for the designs that sell well online. The flexibility of this model has fuelled the company's meteoric rise. Shein accounts for about 50 percent of the US fast fashion industry, according to Bloomberg Second Measure, a data analytics firm. The company's growth has also been thanks to a loopholes in the US customs regime, which allowed low-value goods to be imported free. In 2022, over 30 percent of all the small packages imported under the so-called 'de minimis' exemption came from Shein and Temu, another Chinese e-commerce company. On 2 May, Trump closed that loophole for goods from China and Hong Kong. This week, he expanded that ban to goods from all countries, meaning that suppliers can't avoid tariffs by shipping via third countries. A recent analysis by Reuters found that prices on Shein increased by an average of 23 percent between 24 April and 22 July. The US market is 'volatile and risky,' says Peng Jianshen, the boss of a medium-sized denim clothes factory in Zengcheng, another of Guangzhou's urban villages. 'When tariffs were suddenly increased, the entire US-focused production stopped. No one dared to continue'. Experts say that the uncertainty of the trade war could have a negative impact on working conditions, encouraging workers to add hours to their already punishingly long shifts. 'Generally, when we're talking about the garment industry in China, workers don't have rest days,' says Li Qiang, the founder of China Labor Watch, a US-based NGO. 'They're paid by piece rate. So they work as much as possible when the orders are still there.' But factory bosses in Guangzhou say the trade war is only the latest in a series of problems facing their industry. Global conflicts and low consumer spending in China mean that it's hard to pivot away from the US and towards other markets. Li Jun, a chain-smoking factory boss, runs a denim clothing factory that sells jeans to Russia. He says the economic impact of the war in Ukraine, plus the fact that many of his would-be customers have been drafted to fight in the conflict, have been bad for business. 'The economy is not doing well anywhere,' he says. 'A lot of factories are shutting down.' At his peak he was exporting 100,000 pairs of jeans per month, with more than half going to Russia, but now it's 30,000 to 40,000 pairs each month, meaning that he just about breaks even. Manufacturers in places like Guangzhou have long been the engine room of China's growth. But in recent years, keen to shed the label of being the world's factory, Beijing has been pouring all its political and economic support into hi-tech industries, such as artificial intelligence and semiconductors. 'The Chinese government no longer supports these kinds of light industries or small individual businesses,' Li says. 'It's really hard to keep things going'. By Amy Hawkins Learn more: Trump to Levy 25% Tariffs on Japan, South Korea in August The 25 percent rates do not include any sectoral-specific tariffs that the Trump administration would separately implement on goods imported in key industries.
