Halftime in the EU/US commercial struggle – what is the score 45 days?

Published on
24/05/2025 – 9:00 GMT+2

It is 45 days after US President Donald Trump announced a 90-day break in the trade war that he started against partners around the world, but negotiations between the EU and the USA do not seem to have moved to one centimeter during this time.

A week after both sides had sent letters with their respective offers, Trump threatened to impose “almost 50% tariffs on the European Union” in his truth on social media, from June 1, 2025.

“The European Union, which was founded as the main purpose of the trade, was very difficult to cope with,” wrote Trump, adding: “Her mighty trade barriers, VAT, ridiculous company penalty, not monetary trade barriers, money manipulations, unjustified injustices and unjustified complaints against Americans companies, which is completely unacceptable.”

The EU has always rejected the US calculations of the trade deficit, which indicates a US surplus for services and is due to the fact that there is no more than 50 billion euros for the EU.

The United States is currently setting 25% tariffs on EU aluminum, steel and cars and covering 10% tariffs for all EU imports in the USA.

Last week, the Commission, who negotiated on behalf of the 27 Member States on trade agreements, received from the US administration to which it replied.

Officials who saw both offers saw little hope of seeing the negotiations until the end of the 90-day break, not only because the United States is involved in numerous negotiations with its partners around the world, but also because both offers were radically removed.

The EU proposes zero-bis zero-tariffs for all industrial goods and purchases from us liquefy natural gas, AI technology and non-sensitive agricultural products such as soybeans. It also hopes that the proposal, with the US administration in some joint questions towards China, such as. B. overcapacities to work with the US administration could contribute to promoting the negotiations.

Diplomatic sources informed Euronews that there will be slim chances that the EU will be able to return to the level of tariffs that existed before Trump's trade war, even if a majority of the EU member states still hope to do so.

The Commission itself has proposed a package of countermeasures of 95 billion euros in order to “compensate” the trade relationships if the negotiation fails. There would be a first list of US products worth 21 billion euros that are hit by EU tariffs and that were exposed to the announcement of an armistice.

Maroš Šefčovič traveled to Washington three times to meet the US colleagues Howard Lutnick and the US trade representative Jamieson Greer. The EU hopes that the United States could turn the dial by agreeing a meeting between Šefčovič and its US colleagues in June on the occasion of an OECD meeting in Paris on the home lawn.

For weeks, the Commission has said that meetings will take place on a “technical” level between the two sides of the Atlantic. But the right negotiation has not started.