Trump meets U.K. leader Starmer as he celebrates striking trade deal with EU
After meeting for just over one hour with EU leader Ursula von der Leyen on Sunday, Mr. Trump emerged to say, "We have good news. We've reached a deal."
When considered as a combined economy, the EU bloc is the second largest in the world behind the U.S. Including goods and services, U.S.-EU trade is worth about $2 trillion per year.
"I think it's great that we made a deal today, instead of playing games," Mr. Trump said of the framework agreement. "I think it's the biggest deal ever made."
"It's a big deal, it's a huge deal," agreed von der Leyen. "It will bring stability. It will bring predictability."
President Trump's meeting Starmer was also expected to touch on trade, though the U.S. and the U.K. already agreed a framework trade deal last month. Starmer has made it clear he wants to keep pushing Mr. Trump to further ease tariffs on British steel and other imports as the details of the agreement are hashed out.
Both U.S. and U.K. officials said the ongoing wars in Gaza and Ukraine would also come up in their discussion on Monday.
Ahead of the meeting, Mr. Trump told reporters he would likely reduce the 50-day deadline he gave to Russian President Vladimir Putin to agree to a ceasefire deal with Ukraine before he imposes new sanctions against Russia.
Mr. Trump didn't specify how much he would reduce the timeline, but said he was "very disappointed" in Putin for continuing to attack Ukraine. Russia rejected the deadline when the White House first announced it, calling it "unacceptable."
But Mr. Trump said his meeting with Starmer would provide a chance to celebrate the U.S.-U.K. trade agreement now on the books, along with the new EU deal.
Most EU member nations' governments voiced support for that agreement on Monday, though some of them unenthusiastically – and the French Prime Minister even took a jab at the bloc, accusing it of "submission" to Mr. Trump.
Mr. Trump said the tariff rate for the EU's 27 member countries would be 15% for most imports, including vehicles. The EU, meanwhile, agreed to purchase U.S. military hardware, $750 billion of American energy, and to increase its collective investment in the U.S. by $600 billion.
There's was good news for U.S. companies that sell products into the EU market, too, as Mr. Trump announced that all 27 EU nations "will be opened up to trade with the United States at zero tariff."
The agreement was made at Trump's luxury golf resort in Turnberry, on the Scottish coast, where the president spent the weekend teeing off.
The deal avoids a trans-Atlantic trade war that could have unfolded on Friday, when Mr. Trump had threatened to impose a blanket 30% tariff on all goods imported from the EU, which had vowed to retaliate.
That deadline remains in place for countries that have yet to make a deal with the U.S., including Mexico, Canada, and most consequentially, China.
Trade talks between Beijing and Washington were taking place Monday in Stockholm, and U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said in interviews over the weekend that the Aug. 1 deadline for deals to be reached wasn't flexible.
"No extensions, no more grace periods. August 1, the tariffs are set. They'll go into place. Customs will start collecting the money, and off we go," he said.
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But a higher proportion of older adults does not necessarily mean the proportion of workers to nonworkers falls. For one thing, the proportion of children under age 18 in the population also declines, so the number of working-age adults—usually defined as ages 18 to 64—often changes relatively little. And as older adults stay healthier and more active, a growing number of them are contributing to the economy. Labor force participation among Americans ages 65 to 74 increased from 21.4% in 2003 to 26.9% in 2023 — and is expected to increase to 30.4% by 2033. Modest changes in the average age of retirement or in how Social Security is funded would further reduce strains on support programs for older adults. What's more, pronatalists' core argument that a higher birth rate would increase the size of the labor force overlooks some short-term consequences. More babies means more dependents, at least until those children become old enough to enter the labor force. Children not only require expensive services such as education, but also reduce labor force participation, particularly for women. As fertility rates have fallen, women's labor force participation rates have risen dramatically —from 34% in 1950 to 58% in 2024. Pronatalist policies that discourage women's employment are at odds with concerns about a diminishing number of workers. Research shows that economic policies and labor market conditions, not demographic age structures, play the most important role in determining economic growth in advanced economies. And with rapidly changing technologies like automation and artificial intelligence, it is unclear what demand there will be for workers in the future. Moreover, immigration is a powerful—and immediate—tool for addressing labor market needs and concerns over the proportion of workers. Overall, there's no evidence for Elon Musk's assertion that 'humanity is dying.' While the changes in population structure that accompany low birth rates are real, in our view the impact of these changes has been dramatically overstated. Strong investments in education and sensible economic policies can help countries successfully adapt to a new demographic reality.
