TMTPOST -- The European Union’s trade negotiations with the United States could have to extend beyond President Donald Trump’s July 9 deadline as the Trump administration is reportedly forcing the bloc to make hard concessions.
Credit：Xinhua News Agency
The U.S. is demanding what EU officials deem as unbalanced, unilateral concessions in ongoing trade talks, such as measures regarding to quotas for fish exports that European officials believe may be incompatible with World Trade Organization rules, tariffs-related moves that aren’t mutual, a series of demands on economic security, which were described by the officials as far-fetched, Bloomberg cited people familiar with the matter.
It was reported that many of U.S. tariffs would remain even in the event of a deal, and the best-case scenario is to reach an agreement on principles, which would allow further talks to extend past the deadline of July 9, which is when the Trump administration’s reciprocal tariffs return to higher levels from the baseline level 10%. The reported demands may lead to EU’s tough decision on countermeasures if the terms of any deal don’t improve.
A European Commission spokesperson declined to comment on the report, and stressed “a negotiated, mutually beneficial solution” is still the EU’s preferred outcome.
Reports last week suggested the EU is exploring new ways to push for a deal as Trump’s July 9 deadline looms.
The U.S. and the EU seem closer to a deal to address multiple non-tariff trade issues, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday, citing a draft agreement on reciprocal trade. The draft was reported to be circulated by the U.S.Trade Representative’s office and touch a litany of trade issues, such as the EU’s Digital Markets Act, its carbon-based border tariffs, shipbuilding, but it doesn’t specifically address any of the tariffs the Trump has threatened or imposed on the bloc.
It is unclear whether the EU will address the tariff issues in a separate deal, or if both sides will decide to extend those negotiations beyond the July 9 tariff deadline. A day prior to the report, advisor to German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Michael Clauss, revealed that the European Union is pushing for a Britain-style trade deal with the U.S. Such a deal leaves some tariffs in place after the deadline next month, further delaying retaliation against Washington.
Clauss, in a Financial Times (FT) event on Thursday, expected an arrangement “a little bit along the model of”the U.S.-Britain agreement, rather than a full trade agreement. He said the European Commission will want to know if “if there is a landing zone” on the baseline 10% reciprocal tariffs before discussing tariffs on various sectors. He also said EU member states fear the economic consequences and the risk of European internal disagreements on taking countermeasures.
Some nations, led by France, plan to retaliate in that scenario, but others, including Italy and Hungary, want to keep negotiations going, spooked by Trump’s threat to impose 200% tariffs on wine and whiskey when the EU proposed targeting bourbon in April, according to the FT report.
European officials are increasingly expecting a 10% rate on the so-called reciprocal tariffs to be the baseline in any EU-U.S. trade deal, Reuters cited sources on Thursday. EU negotiators are said to still seek the tariff rate lower than 10%, but negotiating the 10% level down had become harder since the U.S. started drawing revenues from its global tariffs. One of the sources said there had been no acceptance by the EU of 10% as the baseline rate at talks, but suggested it would be difficult for the block to force U.S. to change or abolish that baseline.
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