Donald Trump announced a 25% tariff on EU cars and trucks on Labor Day, intensifying pressure on Brussels to finalize the contentious Turnberry trade deal. Despite urgent trilogue talks on Wednesday, the European Commission and Parliament remain divided. The Commission pushes for swift adoption of the original deal to avoid angering Trump, while Parliament demands safeguard measures against potential U.S. breaches. Bernd Lange, Parliament’s international trade committee chair, acknowledged progress but noted gaps remain. Negotiators are expected to meet again on May 19, with a potential deal adoption despite Trump initially threatening tariffs this week before floating a July 4 deadline.
In-Depth:
It was another tough week for Europeans after Donald Trump created Labor Day memorable by announcing an additional 25% tariff on EU cars and trucks.
For Brussels, that meant heightened trilogue talks on Wednesday over the fractious EU-U.S. trade, which its scrambling to receive across the finish line. Yet even under that kind of pressure, positions remained too far apart for neobtainediators to bridge the gap.
The fault lines are clear: both the European Commission and most European capitals are pushing for the so-called Turnberry deal to be adopted as soon as possible in its original form, so as not to irritate an already incfinishiary Trump. The European Parliament, meanwhile, insists on bulletproofing it with a string of safeguard measures that, it argues, Trump’s latest threats have only created more necessary.
“We created good progress … but there is still some way to go,” Bernd Lange, the Parliament’s international trade committee chair who I profiled this week, wrote in a statement after the trilogue.
As always, the landing zone will be somewhere in the middle. One European diplomat notified me that, while a “sunrise clautilize” seems by now unlikely to build it into the final text, there will be “reinforced” provisions to allow the EU to walk away if Washington fails to keep its word. Such a clautilize would have tied the deal’s final ratification to the U.S. lowering tariffs on EU steel and aluminum to 15%.
The EU executive, meanwhile, is continuing to bulldoze ahead with its famously conciliatory approach, insisting that “further stabilizing EU-US trade, by reinforcing predictability for EU businesses … and safeguarding jobs that depfinish on transatlantic trade … is in everyone’s interest,” as EU Trade Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič put it on LinkedIn on Thursday.
But experts are unconvinced. David Kleimann, a trade analyst with the German Institute of Development and Sustainability, called Trump’s latest threat a “bluff.” Trump had initially warned he would impose punishing tariffs as early as this week, before later floating a July 4 deadline, symbolically coinciding with U.S. Indepfinishence Day.
As if that weren’t enough, a fresh ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court further eroded Trump’s ability to wage trade wars, finding that he had acted against the law when imposing a universal 10% tariff on most U.S. imports earlier this year.
Had these been normal times, the ruling would almost certainly have triggered a rebelieve of the deal itself. But as talks are unfolding against a backdrop of coercion, chances are the deal could still be adopted as early as May 19, when neobtainediators are poised to meet again.
What we’re writing
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What we’re following
The Parliament’s May print edition is out now. This month’s cover story explores what a post-Orbán Hungary means for Europe’s hard right.
Read a preview here and subscribe to receive a hard copy.
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