Trump says '50/50 chance' of US-EU trade deal
"I would say that we have a 50/50 chance, maybe less than that, but a 50/50 chance of making a deal with the EU," Trump told reporters before leaving the White House for a trip to Scotland.
His administration promised "90 deals in 90 days" as it delayed the imposition of higher duties in April, but has so far unveiled just five agreements, including with Britain, Japan and the Philippines.
The EU's 27 countries have been allowing the European Commission to focus on seeking a deal to avoid hefty US tariffs, with Trump threatening 30 percent levies without an accord by month's end.
Brussels and Washington appear to be inching towards a deal with a baseline 15 percent US tariff on EU goods, and potential carve-outs for critical sectors, multiple diplomats have told AFP.
But EU member states on Thursday backed a package of retaliation on $109 billion (93 billion euros) of US goods -- to kick in from August 7 if talks fall short.
Von der Leyen said Friday she will meet Trump in Scotland this weekend to address the tariffs standoff.
"Following a good call with @POTUS, we have agreed to meet in Scotland on Sunday to discuss transatlantic trade relations, and how we can keep them strong," she wrote on X.
Trump claimed that most of the deals he was seeking had been completed, although he made clear that he was talking about sending letters imposing tariffs on US trade partners, rather than negotiating free trade agreements.
Tariffs charged on other countries are ultimately passed on as a sales tax to US consumers, because they are paid by importers, not the country supplying the goods or services.
"I don't want to hurt countries, but we're going to send a letter out some time during the week, and it's basically going to say, 'You're going to pay 10 percent, you're going to pay 15 percent, you're going to pay maybe less,' I don't know," Trump told reporters.
Trump said his negotiators were working "diligently" with EU officials, but he added that "we haven't really had a lot of luck" in talks with Canada, which Trump has threatened with a 35 percent tariff.
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France 24
an hour ago
- France 24
Key takeaways from the EU-US trade deal
EU chief Ursula von der Leyen clinched an agreement Sunday with US President Donald Trump to avoid crippling tariffs from hitting the bloc, with both leaders hailing a 'good deal'. The stakes were high with a looming August 1 deadline and $1.9 trillion transatlantic trading relationship on the line. Many European businesses will breathe a sigh of relief after the leaders agreed the 27-country bloc will face a baseline levy of 15 percent instead of a threatened 30 percent – but the deal will not satisfy everyone. Here is what we know so far: What did EU, US agree on? Both sides confirmed there will be a 15-percent across-the-board rate on a majority of EU goods – the same level secured by Japan this month – with bilateral tariff exemptions on some products. The deal will bring relief for the bloc's auto sector, employing around 13 million people – and hit by Trump with 25-percent tariffs, on top of a pre-existing 2.5 percent. 'Obviously, it is good news for the car industry. So Germany will be happy. And all the EU members with auto supply chains, they go from 27.5 to 15 percent,' said Jacob Funk Kirkegaard of the Peterson Institute For International Economics. A 15-percent levy will remain 'costly' for German automakers, 'but it is manageable', said trade geopolitics expert Elvire Fabry at the Jacques Delors Institute. While 15 percent is much higher than pre-existing US tariffs on European goods – averaging 4.8 percent – it mirrors the status quo, with companies currently facing an additional flat rate of 10 percent imposed by Trump since April. The EU also committed to buy $750 billion of liquefied natural gas, oil and nuclear fuels from the United States – split equally over three years – to replace Russian energy sources. And it will pour $600 billion more in additional investments in the United States. Trump said EU countries – which recently pledged to ramp up their defence spending within NATO – would be purchasing 'hundreds of billions of dollars' worth of military equipment'. Are there exemptions? Von der Leyen said the 15-percent rate applied across most sectors, including semiconductors and pharmaceuticals – a critical export for Ireland, which the bloc has sought to protect. Trump in April launched probes that could lead to significantly steeper tariffs on the two key sectors, warning this month he could slap 200-percent levies on drugs. Brussels and Washington agreed a bilateral tariff exemption for key goods including aircraft, certain chemicals, semiconductor equipment, certain agricultural products and critical raw materials, von der Leyen said. The EU currently faces 50-percent tariffs on its steel exports to the United States, but von der Leyen said a compromise on the metal had been reached with Trump. 'Between us, tariffs will be cut and a quota system will be put in place,' she said. It is understood that European steel would be hit with 50-percent levies only after a certain amount of the metal arrived in the United States, but no details were initially provided on the mechanism. What happens next? The deal needs to be approved by EU member states, whose ambassadors will meet first thing Monday morning for a debrief from the European Commission. And there are still technical talks to come, since the agreement needs to be fully fleshed out. Von der Leyen described the deal as a 'framework' agreement. 'Details have to be sorted out, and that will happen over the next weeks,' she said. In particular, she said there has yet to be a final decision on alcohol, critical since France and The Netherlands have been pushing for carve-outs for wine and beer respectively. 'This is something which has to be sorted out in the next days,' von der Leyen said.
Euronews
2 hours ago
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On defence, France and Germany are inching closer but remain far apart
Germany is becoming more French - and vice versa - when it comes to defence but big differences in the state of their public finances and strategic thinking mean the so-called Franco-German engine is unlikely to be able to power a big shift in the way the EU as a whole does defence. "From a longer historical point of view, the degree of convergence (between the two countries) is arguably higher than it has been for, I would say, decades," Jacob F. Kirkegaard, a senior fellow at the Brussels-based Bruegel think tank, told Euronews. Both capitals see Russia as their biggest long-term threat, and both have pledged to pour hundreds of billions of euros into their military and defence industrial base. In Berlin, this has been dubbed a "Zeitenwende" (or historical turning point) while Paris said its latest military programmation law is "the ultimate strategic move". 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"That's why the French military is much more comfortable with acting unilaterally or outside of EU, NATO contexts (than Germany's), and this then extends to the kinds of capabilities that the French armed forces prefer acquiring," Loss said. "Everything that relates to the French nuclear deterrent has to work when France is alone. And that means that FCAS, which is supposed to replace the Rafale fighter bombers going forward in carrying French nuclear weapons, French military and political leadership will not accept a situation where they're dependent to produce this capability because the nuclear deterrent depends on that capability." "French industry will need to be able to produce this aircraft by themselves if push comes to shove. They're willing to cooperate when strategic orientations align, but ultimately they have to produce everything independently of others. And again, that's something that many in Germany and across Europe haven't quite realised," he added. Still, Loss continued, "France is converging with Germany" with the "realisation that for the sake of European security, it needs to show that it invests in its partnerships and relationships with Europeans, especially those on the eastern flank". 'A big wasted opportunity' But the other major hurdle for the two to advance a common defence agenda at the EU level is the stark difference in their respective fiscal space. Germany's debt-to-Gross Domestic Product (GDP) ratio stood at 62.3% in the first quarter of the year. France's was at 114.1%, well above what the bloc's rules mandate (60%). This structural divergence means that as European countries aim to significantly ramp up their defence spending and military capabilities to deter a possible Russian attack towards the turn of the decade, Germany can afford to invest heavily in defence, while France cannot. For instance, Germany has asked to make use of a proposal by Brussels to loosen fiscal rules for defence spending, something France, which is targeted by an excessive deficit procedure, cannot do. France, which has consistently invested in defence over the last few decades, has less ground to cover, so to speak, but the sums advanced by the German government (including a €500 billion fund to boost the military and the country's infrastructure) should mean it catches up quickly. But their public finances also "fundamentally place them on different sides of negotiating tables" at the EU level, Kirkegaard said. The European Commission has put forward a plan to rearm Europe that it hopes will prompt member states to invest up to €800 billion before 2030. But most of that money is expected to come from member states' coffers, which in the case of France, are quite depleted. Given the scale of the task ahead, the Commission has been asked to come up with "innovative" financing options for defence. Macron has called for one of those options to be joint EU borrowing, something Germany has flat-out rejected. For Kirkegaard, this means that the crisis ushered in by Russia's war on Ukraine, is "a big wasted opportunity" for the bloc. "This crisis, the war in Ukraine, will not lead to materially more EU institutional or fiscal integration. It will lead to an expansion of the EU with Ukraine and maybe other countries but that's a different type of change to the EU and that's also very different than the last many big crises we've had," he said.
