2d ago

US and EU reach trade deal to avoid tariffs

www.dw.com /en/us-and-eu-reach-trade-deal-to-avoid-tariffs/a-73429993

What's in the EU-US trade deal?

"We are agreeing that the tariff straight across, for automobiles and everything else, will be a straight across tariff of 15%," according to Trump.

Currently, most EU goods face a 10% tariff, with levies of 50% on steel and aluminum. Cars and car parts are now taxed at 25%.

Trump also said the bloc had agreed to purchase "$750 billion (€638 billion) worth of energy" from his country, as well as $600 billion more in additional investments.

The president told reporters at the start of the meeting that fairness was the main remaining sticking point.

"Europe is very closed. We don't sell cars into Europe. We don't sell essentially agriculture of any great degree," he said, adding that pharmaceuticals "won't be part of" any agreement.

You're viewing a single thread.

44 comments

For the nth time, tariffs are import taxes levied on the LOCALS importing from a country being tariffed (well, import tariffs anyway). All Trump did here is ensure European companies that traditionally sell a lot in the US diversify and find non-American customers to break their dependency on US customers that don't buy as much anymore. That's good for Europe in the long term.
As for energy, Europe needs it to avoid buying Russian oil and gas anyway. So it's a great way for Europe to avoid dealing with sketchy petro states to get energy.
- and the US is not a sketchy petro-state?
  
  Pedo-state
  
  They're all sketchy apart from Norway and the UK. My point being, if you want to starve Russia of petrodollars, you can't procure Russian oil from Russian client states and pretend it's not Russia oil.
  Europe would be better off not buying oil from dictators in the Gulf, dictators in America or dictators in Russia. But they can't afford to forgo all of them, and the war currently raging at Europe's doorstep is being waged by the latter. So if they have to choose which shitty countries to buy oil from, the US is part of the lesser evil mix as far as they're concerned.
  
  Uk? Hmm
  
  It's not fair to uphold everyone to norways standards though, at some point you just have to say they're not sketchy enough. /s
  
  The UK? not sketchy?
- Although buying energy from USA means as LNG. Which is too expensive and can hurt the economy in the long run. Seems more like a bribe to avoid high tariffs for the big EU companies that export to US. Also $600 billion additional investments in US, that could made in EU.
  
  Also $600 billion additional investments in US, that could made in EU.
  I never said dealing with an overbearing ultramilitarized jingoistic fascist state was easy or convenient. I'm just saying, as concessions go, this one doesn't run against immediate European interests that much.
  
  I don't know. This show looks like how to avoid bullets. We gained nothing. We just avoided the 30% tariff with a 15% one.
  
  I think Europe sees this as a stopgap solution to mitigate the economic impact until the midterms. If the dems win the house back - which appears likely - they'll stop Trump's illegal tariffs and reverse those "deals" that Trump had no right to make in the first place.
- Hopefully buy a bit more Canadian to support them.
- Americans won't have money to pay for it products anyway. I'm not even sure 15% will be the problem.

44 comments