The European Union has generally resigned its exports to the United States. There will be no similar imposition, on the other hand, for the American products that Europe bought. This is the basic principle of the pact reached by the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and the president of the United States, Donald Trump, this Sunday in a golf course owned by Trump himself in Scotland. There were no surprises, despite the fact that the American has maintained the pressure so far before the meeting began, when he has said that he believed he had to open with the European Union between March and April and that he has altered the most intense commercial relationship in the world.
“He will be the greatest of the agreements,” Trump proclaimed with his usual grandiloquence. “We have achieved it and it is good,” Von der Leyen has congratulated, who has led a European Commission that has persevered in the negotiation and at the output agreed until the end. This arrangement, which avoids a climb that could be worse, is clearly unbalanced for European interests.
That the United States has managed to impose its position is clear in the result, but also in the words of von der Leyen. Before entering the meeting, he said it was “to rebalance the situation.” “We have a surplus. The United States has a deficit and we have to rebalance it,” he gave. At the end, in his meeting before the press he talked about an “agreement that creates certainty in uncertain times, gives stability and predictability for citizens and companies on both sides of the Atlantic.” To avoid valuations, he did not emphasize the numbers and fled the qualifiers that Trump had used.
In the absence of all the details of the pact achieved in Scotland, the agreement, discussed for weeks between the two blocks that most goods and services in the world, consolidates the unequal starting point in which these negotiations began. Because when the conversations began in April, Washington applied to the EU with an additional 10% that joined the general 4.8% that already taxed the European products that entered the United States before Trump arrived at the White House. Now all the imposition would be encompassed, according to what was already known before this Sunday’s meeting, in 15%.
If these numbers are confirmed, the result is clearly unequal. The data of the European Center for Bruegel studies concluded a few weeks ago that the average tariff applied to European imports to the United States was 1.45% in 2023. and conversely, 1.32%. Now, that calculation would be very different considering that Washington will apply 15% general tariff.
That rate will also apply to cars. The damage that could cause to this sector a tariff climb has been very present at all times in the negotiations. “We should not forget where we come from, today cars pay 27.5% and we have managed to lower it to 15%. It is the best we could achieve,” the German has admitted with resignation, remembering that this last percentage will also apply to pharmaceutical products, for semiconductors and for agriculture. There will be some exceptions in strategic products for the United States. Thus, the tariff will be non -existent in aviation, some chips, critical raw materials and some agricultural products.
That Von der Leyen has included the pharmaceutical sector in the list of products that will pay the general tariff has generated some confusion because at the beginning of the meeting Trump had said that the United States wants the medications to be manufactured in their country. When explanations have been asked about this, the German has assured that what was expressed by the US president would affect the rest of the world, but not Europe.
Trump has also stressed, in addition, that the EU promised to buy fuels of American origin worth 750,000 million dollars (about 640,000 million euros). Brussels has confirmed these data, but has clarified that it will be over three years and has presented it as a way of disconnecting more from raw and Russian gas. There would also be American investment and purchase commitments, but there are no figures at the moment.
To Scotland, the European delegation arrived headed by the president of the Community Executive and the Commissioner of Commerce, Maros Sefcovic, together with technicians and support personnel of their cabinets. On the American side, there were Trump, and. Everyone was sitting against each other at a meeting in which Trump has occupied the scene talking and responding about everything that was asked: tariffs, gaza, migration, the United Kingdom … The Republican has made it clear with his attitude that the Europeans were guests in his house, a golf club of his property in southern Scotland, and von der Leyen has assumed that secondary role.
The most intense commercial relationship in the world
Washington and Brussels is the most intense commercial relationship in the world. Every day, with data from 2024, they cross the Atlantic in one direction or in another products worth 2.4 billion euros. In total there were 870,000 million euros last year, with a deficit from the American side close to 200,000 million. The balance, despite everything, is very leveled when the exchange of services is added, about 50,000 million with data from 2023.
Negotiations between Brussels and Washington began more than three months ago, in the first half of April. Just a few days after Trump launched his commercial war against the entire world with a barrage of mass tariffs, he reculled for the pressure of the markets, which were primed with the US debt. Since then, the Trump administration has been closing agreements, Vietnam, the Philippines and Japan.
The latter, also with 15% of tariffs for Japanese exports to the American giant, changed the scenario of the conversations between the EU and the United States. Many diplomats, politicians and analysts began to see it as the example of what could serve Europe. In fact, it was just a day later when the possibility of a meeting point began to glimpse, after a call between SEFCOVIC and Lutnick.
The list of pending commercial negotiations for Washington is not over here. This Monday and Tuesday the Treasury Secretary, Scott Besent, travels to Stockholm to negotiate with a Chinese delegation. Between the two great powers, there is a truce after the initial tariff climb in which no part gave up. Then, after a first American coup, Beijing’s replica was happening; To this, Trump’s courime. And so on until a level was reached in which Chinese exports to the United States paid an entry tariff of 145% and 125% in the opposite direction. Then a truce was agreed and now the rate is 30% and 20%, respectively.
