Stay informed of free updates
A final EU-US Handelsdeal is “impossible” before July 9, so the two parties strive for a less detailed “agreement in principle,” said the European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Thursday prior to discussions in Washington.
The EU and the US come closer to a provisional agreement after nearly three months of negotiations to prevent Donald Trump’s threat to impose 50 percent rates on EU goods next week.
“It is a huge task because we have the largest trade volume between the EU and the United States worldwide, € 1.5 tn [annually] – Very complex and an enormous amount, “she told a press conference.
“What we strive for is in principle an agreement,” she added and said that the 90 days allowed for conversations “made an agreement in detail”.
In principle, the UK had also agreed to an agreement with the US, she said. “As far as I am informed, there are so far only two countries that have in principle concluded an agreement.” The US announced a deal with Vietnam on Wednesday.
Both deals, however, left us ‘reciprocal’ rates. Vietnam accepted 20 percent and the UK 10.
EU trade commissioner Maroš Šefčovič is today in Washington for conversations to connect a deal for the deadline of July 9, after which Trump threatened to increase “mutual” rates to 50 percent. He will meet the American Minister of Treasury Scott Bessent and then jointly commercial secretary Howard Lutnick and trade representative Jamieson Greer.
Lutnick said that countries without deals will receive raised rates after 9 July.
EU diplomats have told the Financial Times that the block will probably accept 10 percent over the entire praise, but still wanted to get the sectoral rates on products such as steel, with 50 percent and vehicles and vehicle parts at 25 percent.
It was willing to bind itself to buy more American goods to reduce its trading surplus.
Friedrich Merz, the German Chancellor, who is under great pressure from his car industry, repeated his phone call last week for a fast deal.
“This is not about a finely manufactured, extensive trade agreement with the US that has been negotiated until the last detail,” he said.
“What is at stake here is the rapid resolution of customs duties, in particular for the most important industries of our country – the chemical industry, the pharmaceutical industry, mechanical engineering, aluminum, steel and the car industry … We now need a quick result. Better quickly and easily than long and complicated, with negotiations those months.”
The United Kingdom has a quota of 100,000 exports of vehicles secured annually by 10 percent rates. The British export of jet engines and other space components to the US are also saved from American levies.
It dropped his rates on bio -ethhanol, only from the US and raised quotas for the input of our beef.
American rates cover around € 380 billion in annual EU trade with the US, equal to around 70 percent of the total.
America is considering extending higher sectoral levies to goods, including copper, wood, space components, pharmaceutical products, chips and critical minerals, which would cover almost all EU trade.
