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\n <\/a><\/p>\n“Ursula will be here — a highly respected woman. So we look forward to that,” Trump said.<\/p>\n
“We’ll see if we make a deal,” added the president — who reiterated earlier comments saying the chance of a deal was “50-50”, with sticking points remaining on “maybe 20 different things.”<\/p>\n
“But we’re meeting … with the European Union. And that would be, actually, the biggest deal of them all, if we make it,” he said.<\/p>\n
The high-level meeting follows months of negotiations between top EU and US trade officials, and days of signals suggesting the sides were moving towards an agreement.<\/p>\n
According to multiple European diplomats, the agreement under consideration would involve a baseline 15-percent US levy on EU goods — the same level secured by Japan this week — and potential carve-outs for critical sectors.<\/p>\n
Von der Leyen’s spokesperson Paula Pinho said “intensive negotiations” had been taking place at technical and political level in the run up to Sunday’s meeting.<\/p>\n
“Leaders will now take stock and consider the scope for a balanced outcome that\u00a0provides stability and predictability for businesses and consumers on both sides of the Atlantic,” she said.<\/p>\n
– ‘In Trump’s hands’ –<\/p>\n
Hit by multiple waves of tariffs since Trump reclaimed the White House, the EU is currently subject to a 25-percent levy on cars, 50 percent on steel and aluminum, and an across-the-board tariff of 10 percent, which Washington threatens to hike to 30 percent in a no-deal scenario.<\/p>\n
The EU wants to avoid sweeping tariffs inflicting further harm on the European economy — already suffering from sluggish growth — and damaging a trading relationship worth an annual 1.6 trillion euros ($1.9 trillion) in goods and services.<\/p>\n
EU member states gave the European Commission a mandate to pursue a deal to avoid hefty US tariffs, with retaliation held out as a last resort if talks fail.<\/p>\n
Seeking to keep up the pressure in the final stretch of talks, EU states on Thursday backed a package of retaliation on $109 billion (93 billion euros) of US goods including aircraft and cars — to kick in in stages from August 7 if there is no deal.<\/p>\n
Most states prefer a deal to no deal — even with undesirable levies of 15 percent — but exemptions are key, with aircraft, steel, lumber, pharmaceutical products and agricultural goods under discussion, diplomats said.<\/p>\n
Concerning steel, diplomats say a compromise could allow a certain quota to enter the United States, with amounts beyond that taxed at 50 percent.<\/p>\n
Since launching its tariffs campaign, Trump’s administration has so far unveiled just five agreements, including with Britain, Japan and the Philippines.<\/p>\n
While EU hopes have been rising for a deal, the approaching August 1 deadline also comes with a sense of deja-vu: earlier this month, EU officials also believed they were on the cusp of a deal, before Trump hiked his tariff threat to 30-percent.<\/p>\n
“The final decision is in the hands of President Trump,” an EU diplomat stressed this week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"U chief Ursula von der Leyen and US President Donald Trump said Friday they would meet in Scotland…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":293574,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5174],"tags":[2000,299,5187,479,24533,109084,978],"class_list":{"0":"post-293573","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-european","11":"tag-tariffs","12":"tag-trade-talks","13":"tag-trade-aggreement-talk","14":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114920183868295564","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293573","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=293573"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293573\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/293574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=293573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=293573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=293573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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