{"id":327263,"date":"2025-08-08T07:09:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-08T07:09:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/327263\/"},"modified":"2025-08-08T07:09:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-08T07:09:10","slug":"who-got-the-best-trade-deal-with-the-us-the-eu-or-uk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/327263\/","title":{"rendered":"Who got the best trade deal with the US – the EU or UK?"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n

Although the deal concluded by the EU with the US setting a 15% tariff for EU goods seems less favourable than the UK\u2019s 10% blanket tariff rate, Commission officials contend that their agreement was the better on balance.<\/p>\n

\u201c15% is the best available treatment,\u201d a senior EU official said this week, referring to the rate at which the EU has accepted its goods will be tariffed by the US.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you specifically want to compare it to the UK, the first point to take note of is that the UK 10% tariff is not an all-inclusive rate,\u201d the official added.<\/p>\n

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and US\u00a0President Donald Trump reached a political agreement\u00a0on 27 July in Scotland<\/a> to\u00a0end the trade strife waging since mid-March. The deal sets US tariffs at 15% on all EU imports and entered into force on 7 August, while negotiations continue on\u00a0exemptions and a range of other issues.<\/p>\n

For its part, the UK concluded an agreement <\/a>with the US on 8 May, called the US-UK Economic Prosperity Deal (EPD), which sets a 10% tariff rate on imports of UK goods to the US.<\/p>\n

All-inclusive rate<\/p>\n

However, according to the EU official, the 10% tariff rate within the US-UK deal did not incorporate existing US import tariffs applied to the UK, the so-called Most Favoured Nation (MFN) rates, that the US applied to foreign counties\u2019 imports before its new tariff policy.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnlike other US trade partners, this [EU] 15% tariff rate includes existing Most Favoured Nation (MFN) rates, meaning no stacking above the 15% ceiling,\u201d Commission spokesperson Olof Gill has said of the EU-US deal.<\/p>\n

If the 4.8% average US tariffs applied until then to EU imports is deducted from the current 15%, the effective tariff applied to the EU comes closer to the UK\u2019s 10%.<\/p>\n

The same senior EU official took the specific example of cheese, \u201can important product for the EU, but also a very important product, for the UK.\u201d In the EU it will face a 15% tariff, while in the UK it will be 10% plus the 14.9% tariff which applies to that product under the existing terms, which means 24.9 %.<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course and in all transparency some products may have a slightly better treatment for UK exporters,\u201d the official admitted, \u201cbut there are many products that will be in a better position in the overall situation.\u201d<\/p>\n

If the deal of 27 July is respected by the US, the EU\u2019s 15% tariff should apply to all goods, including semiconductors, pharma and cars, Gill said on Thursday. \u201cThat is not something that the UK, at least not in writing, has obtained today,\u201d the EU official added.<\/p>\n

Sensitive agriculture products<\/p>\n

On cars, the UK deal establishes that UK exports to the US will face 10% tariff only to a quota of 100,000 cars a year, above that quota the US will start\u00a0applying 25% tariffs. The Commission on its side said it has secured a 15% rate on cars too, subject to no quota, meaning that an unlimited number can be imported at that rate. However,\u00a0as of today, the US has yet to keep its word, however, and EU cars are still subject to a 25% tariff.<\/p>\n

The Commission also prides itself on not having made the commitments the British did in sensitive agricultural sectors such as beef and ethanol.<\/p>\n

On beef, the UK deal creates a preferential duty-free quota for US beef of 13,000 tonnes \u00a0per year and removed the existing 20% UK tariff. On ethanol, the UK commits to preferential duty-free quota for US ethanol of 1.4 billion litres per year.<\/p>\n

For the EU, making concessions on such sensitive products is out of the question.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe European union will not make commitments in sensitive sectors. So for example, ethanol and beef,\u201d the official said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ADVERTISEMENT Although the deal concluded by the EU with the US setting a 15% tariff for EU goods…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":327264,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5311],"tags":[32,7221,1201,554,49,1220,978,659],"class_list":{"0":"post-327263","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-donald-trump","9":"tag-eu-policy","10":"tag-trade","11":"tag-trump-tariffs","12":"tag-united-states","13":"tag-ursula-von-der-leyen","14":"tag-us","15":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114991894687603199","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327263","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=327263"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327263\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/327264"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=327263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=327263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=327263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}