Donald Trump has given the EU until early July to implement its trade deal with the US, as he also offered a reprieve from steep car tariffs threatened last week, according to people familiar with the matter.
The US president said in a post on Truth Social on Thursday that he would hit the EU with “much higher” tariffs if it did not put in place its side of the agreement struck last summer before July 4th.
Trump wrote that he had spoken with European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen by phone on Thursday.
“A promise was made that the EU would deliver their side of the Deal and, as per Agreement, cut their Tariffs to ZERO!” he wrote. “I agreed to give her until our Country’s 250th Birthday or, unfortunately, their Tariffs would immediately jump to much higher levels.”
Trump’s latest tariff threats follow months of complaints from US officials over the slow pace of the bloc implementing the deal struck in Turnberry.
It also comes as his 10 per cent global tariffs were ruled illegal by a US court on Thursday, striking a fresh blow to the president’s flagship economic agenda as he battles to raise levies on trading partners.
The US Court of International Trade ruled that the 10 per cent tariffs, imposed under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974, were “unauthorised by law”. The court did not suspend the tariffs broadly but only for the two companies that brought the case.
The ruling is the latest legal setback for Trump’s trade policy after the US supreme court earlier this year ruled the president could not issue tariffs using emergency economic powers.
As part of the US-EU trade deal, the US agreed to reduce Trump’s steep “liberation day” levies to 15 per cent on most goods imported to the US from the bloc. In exchange, the EU agreed to slash its own levies on US industrial goods and some agricultural products to zero.
EU lawmakers approved the trade deal earlier this year, although it was delayed because of anger over Trump’s campaign to acquire the Danish territory of Greenland.
However, MEPs set conditions, including an agreement to reverse the decision if Trump imposed new levies.
Von der Leyen said on X that she and Trump “discussed the EU-US trade deal”. “We remain fully committed, on both sides, to its implementation,” she wrote. “Good progress is being made towards tariff reduction by early July.”
She added that they also discussed “the situation in the Middle East” and agreed “that Iran must never [possess] a nuclear weapon”.
Despite the US supreme court decision, Trump’s administration is working on several probes that could allow the president to hit nations with new levies.
Trump can still impose higher duties on cars, as those tariffs were issued under a different legal authority and were not affected by the supreme court ruling in February.
He is also able to increase tariffs on sectors including pharmaceuticals and semiconductors, which were set at 15 per cent under the terms of the trade agreement. – Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2026