Trump Threatens More Tariffs as EU Scrambles to Finalize US Trade Deal Text

(CNA Strasbourg, May 19, Comprehensive Foreign Report) The European Union hopes to finalize the text of a trade agreement reached with the United States nearly a year ago today to push for its formal implementation. An increasingly impatient U.S. President Donald Trump has warned that if the EU fails to complete the process by July 4, it will impose higher tariffs on EU goods. According to AFP, the EU reached a trade deal with Washington last July, setting U.S. tariffs on most EU goods at 15%, but the final text of the agreement has yet to be finalized by the EU, disappointing Donald Trump. The U.S. Mission to the EU stated on the social media platform X yesterday that "a deal is a deal" and emphasized that the EU "must honor" the agreement reached by Trump and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in Turnberry, Scotland. Negotiators from the European Parliament and member states will meet in Strasbourg, France, this evening to seek a compromise, hoping to meet Trump's deadline and end more than a year of transatlantic trade disputes. If the EU fails to complete the agreement process on time, Trump has warned that the EU must be prepared to face "much higher" tariffs and has vowed to raise tariffs on European cars and trucks from 15% to 25%. The chair of the European Parliament's trade committee, Bernd Lange, expressed optimism about the prospects for negotiations, but he must first achieve consensus among the parliament's political groups. The European People's Party (EPP), the largest group in the European Parliament and to which von der Leyen belongs, is actively pushing for the implementation of the agreement, seeing it as crucial to eliminating long-term uncertainty for European businesses. Kathleen Van Brempt, a member of the S&D, the parliament's second-largest group, noted that they will "participate constructively" in the negotiations but will also strive to ensure a stable, predictable, and protected environment for European businesses and workers. One of the main points of contention in the agreement is the European Parliament's enhanced "suspension clause," which would cancel the preferential tariff treatment enjoyed by U.S. exporters if the U.S. violates the agreement in the future. Another controversy involves the so-called "sunrise" and "sunset" clauses, where the EU's measures would only take effect after the U.S. has fully met its commitments, and the agreement would automatically expire if not extended by 2028.