EU leaders split over tactics as deadline looms for Trump trade talks

The EU is entering a crunch week with only two days of talks left to secure a trade deal with Washinton to avert Donald Trump’s threatened 50% tariff on its imports into the US.

According to the US treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, on Friday, the negotiations – which continued over the weekend – are focused on 15 to 18 agreements with important partners, while Trump warned of import tax rates of up to 70% on others.

The German chancellor, , has said he wants a quick UK-style deal to avert a full-scale trade war, while the French president, Emmanuel Macron, favours holding out for a better deal if a rushed deal is “imbalanced”.

Giving a flavour of the aggression shown towards the EU, which Trump once called “nastier than China”, Brussels’ trade commissioner, Maroš Šefčovič, was threatened last week with 17% tariffs on food imports during talks with senior members of the Trump administration including Bessent.

This has raised questions about the EU’s ability to strike anything other than a political framework agreement to extend talks while a baseline 10% tariff and other levies on cars, steel and aluminium remain in place.

Instead they are aiming for an agreement in principle, or “framework deal” which will look more like the UK deal struck in May, which came into force at the end of last month.

Many EU diplomats initially dismissed the UK deal as thin and legally dubious under World Trade Organization rules, and held out hope that the bloc’s greater economic clout with €1.6tn of transatlantic trade compared with the UK’s £314bn (€363bn) would help it secure a better deal. But now they realise a bare-bones deal may be the best they can get.