Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for free
Your guide to what Trump’s second term means for Washington, business and the world
The EU is trying to prevent the US from targeting the bloc’s landmark digital rules as the two sides wrangle over the final details of a delayed statement that will formalise the trade deal they agreed last month.
EU officials said disagreements over language relating to “non-tariff barriers” — which the US has previously said includes the bloc’s ambitious digital rules — are among reasons for the hold-up of the joint statement.
It was originally expected days after European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen and US President Donald Trump announced a tariff agreement on July 27 in Scotland.
Two EU officials said the US wanted to keep the door open for possible concessions on the bloc’s Digital Services Act, which forces Big Tech companies to police their platforms more aggressively. The commission has said that relaxing these rules is a red line.
But a US official said: “We continue to address digital trade barriers in conversations with our trading partners and the EU agreed to address these barriers when our initial agreement was struck.”
The commission had also expected Trump to sign an executive order lowering tariffs on EU cars exported to the US from 27.5 per cent to 15 per cent by August 15, but a US official indicated this would not happen until the joint statement was agreed.
“Actions that adjust any tariff rate, such as Section 232 tariffs [which apply to cars] will follow the finalisation of joint statements with trading partners that we have reached agreements with,” the US official said.
Weeks on, however, drafts of the statement are still circulating between Brussels and Washington and no order has been put forward on cars — a key export sector for Germany.
By contrast the US published the “general terms” of its “economic prosperity deal” with the UK the same day it was agreed in May, though it took several weeks for its provisions to be implemented, with talks on steel and other exports continuing.
The deal with Brussels, heralded by the commission as one of the most advantageous signed by Trump since he unleashed his trade war, sets a ceiling for tariffs on most EU goods imported into the US at 15 per cent.
Some EU exports have been granted exemptions, including aircraft parts, certain drugs and critical minerals.
Analysts and politicians across the bloc, however, have regarded it as a poor outcome for the EU, which has had to swallow higher tariffs at the same time as committing to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on American energy exports and on investments in the US.
Another hurdle to signing off the EU-US joint statement is a brinkmanship over timelines, according to officials in Brussels.
The Trump administration has requested clarity on when American fish and foodstuffs such as ketchup, biscuits, cocoa and soya bean oil would receive better market access and when the EU would reduce its tariffs on US industrial goods.
But the 27-nation bloc has argued it is impossible to set a precise timeline for its internal approval processes, not least because it has not yet decided how it will make the legal changes to cut bureaucracy for US importers.
“We made political commitments, which we intend to honour, provided they [the US] do the same first — in that sequence,” one EU official said.
The US official told the Financial Times that “as with the UK, the Trump administration and the EU agreed to a framework for a comprehensive deal. Both parties were clear when the agreement was reached that many details were going to be worked out at a later time.”
“The administration is working closely with EU officials to finalise those details as quickly as possible to expand market access for American exports,” the official added.
Brussels has given up for now on securing tariff carve-outs for wine and spirits, lobbied for by France and Italy — the bloc’s largest exporters of these products.
On Thursday, commission spokesperson Olof Gill confirmed that the statement had been sent back to the EU for review.
“We are fully focused on getting to that joint statement,” he said, adding that “the last mile is always the hardest”.
