The world of Donald Trump is one of friends and enemies, and friends are the ones who do what you want. And so the Handelsdeal between the United States and the European Union is nothing less than a sounding personal success for the president. “This deal is going to bring us closer together,” said a triumphant Trump on Sunday evening. “It’s a partnership.”
On his own golf course on the Scottish West Coast, Trump got his way just before that. For a long time he has been angry about the EU, who is “founded in Trumps to sew the US” and, to his frustration, carries out more goods to the US than the other way around. But after a conversation with Ursula von der Leyen, the chairman of the European Commission, he is delighted.
“This is a good deal for everyone,” Trump tells satisfied. Von der Leyen, he said earlier at the Golf Resort, “did it great.”
The US will use an input levy of 15 percent for most goods from the EU that enter the country. That is higher than the minimum levies that applied in recent decades, but lower than the 30 percent levies that Trump was threatened by this month. It also means a major reduction for the serious taxes that the US president imposed on cars this spring (25 percent). Chips and pharmaceuticals will also receive a tax of 15 percent and not the much higher levies (up to 200 percent) that Trump has previously threatened. The 50 percent levy on steel and aluminum does maintain the US.
The EU accepts the height of the new taxes and does not set any similar taxes. For example, some agricultural products and aircraft and aircraft components will apply to both sides.
And that is not the only thing: to get Trump on board, Von der Leyen would have promised that 600 billion extra will be invested from the EU in the coming years. In addition, the EU has promised to purchase 750 billion in energy (especially LNG) from the US and billions extra stitches in the purchase of weapons from the US.
A crooked outcome for the Europeans? Von der Leyen does not want to know anything about it afterwards. “This is a huge deal,” said the European Commission’s chairman afterwards. She sounds almost as enthusiastic as Trump.
Jubilant words
With the jubilant words of both leaders, some peace returns to the largest trade relationship in the world. For four months there was feverish negotiations between Brussels and Washington, a race against the clock in which Trump once picked up the fire and then promised a postponement again.
But nobody is really cheerful on the European side. Brussels civil servants and diplomats are relieved, but also afraid of the future. “There will be all kinds of loose ends for which there is no solution yet,” a diplomat from an EU country warned earlier.
And even if they are solved, that is how everyone in Brussels realizes, the relationship has changed permanently. From now on, European companies that do business in or with the US are looking at considerably higher trade walls than a few months ago. For numerous products, the era of free trade between the two largest trade blocks is over for the time being.
“This deal will not be good for the EU and it will not be good for the US,” another diplomat tempered the enthusiasm in advance. “There will be less transatlantic trade. Point.”
Threats
All rules went overboard, in the conversations that American and European negotiators have had in recent months. Most trade agreements are in the making for years, not months as was the case here. They are worked out in detail in back rooms, not dominated by unilateral accusations and threats via social media. And usually they turn to lower the opening of markets by taxes, not to increase them.
But negotiating with the White House of Donald Trump is simply incomparable, the Europeans gradually realized. They were willing to accept an outline agreement and soon realized that Trump could not be convinced with a proposal to lower existing European import duties. There would be taxes, anyway.
More difficult was the fact that the Americans always pursued a variety of goals in the negotiations. One moment the White House complained about the uneven playing field. Until recently, the US used lower import duties than the EU, which in particular always protected its own agricultural sector with high levies.
But there was also dissatisfaction in the White House about EU regulations for Big Tech, safety rules for cars and food standards. The EU did not want to go to that in recent months. At the same time, Trump repeatedly made it clear that the taxes had to stay in any form. Only in this way could factories return to the US and compete with the rest of the world, and moreover the taxes had since become a source of income.
In the dark
It led to a crooked strategy from both sides. For the EU, taxes were always an undesirable agent, at least partly a goal in itself for the White House. The European negotiators constantly touched in the dark about the wishes of their conversation partners. It is guessing every morning what Trump places on Truth Social, as a high -ranking official described it.
In recent weeks, cracks became visible in the common front that the EU wanted to show. Countries that had a lot to lose when their companies were confronted with large tariff walls, such as Germany and Italy, became nervous. Other countries, France first, were the threats that were crazy and found that the EU should play the game harder.
In this way, the outcome was one that also breathes European diplomats with some relief. Worse than hoped, better than feared. And now we hope, it was immediately told the news from the deal that this appointment was not outdated in a month. In the coming weeks, both parties will continue to negotiate to fill in the details, Von der Leyen said.