When Donald Trump unveiled his trade deal with the European Union on Sunday night, he fixated on its size. And when the White House later released a fact sheet on the agreement, it trumpeted pledges by the Europeans for big investments in the United States.
“The E.U. will purchase $750 billion in U.S. energy and make new investments of $600 billion in the United States, all by 2028,” the document declared.
But when the European Union released its own fact sheet on Tuesday, its description of that pledge was more muted — and far more noncommittal on spending outside of energy.
“E.U. companies have expressed interest in investing at least $600 billion” in “various sectors in the U.S.,” the document explained.
There’s a reason for the equivocation: The European commitments are more like vague estimates than specific promises.
The spending would come from private companies across the 27-nation bloc and would not be directed or enforced by European Union officials. The European Commission, the European Union’s executive branch that is responsible for negotiating trade, can play a role in convening, organizing and encouraging big spending, but it cannot compel such outlays.
Still, those eye-catching numbers proved to be an important negotiating tactic.
In recent weeks, E.U. trade negotiators surveyed companies across member states to tally up investment estimates to advertise to their American counterparts. It was a move with some precedent: Similarly huge investment promises appeared to play a role in helping Japan clinch a trade deal with the United States.
“What the Commission has been doing is talking to energy companies, talking to E.U. industry, to see what their intentions are in the coming years,” Olof Gill, a spokesman for the executive branch, said on Tuesday. “What they have told us is, yes, we do plan to invest in the U.S.”
Having collated these plans, E. U. negotiators presented them to Mr. Trump, offering them as a sort of bonus to help the negotiations along.
Mr. Trump received those figures enthusiastically when he met with E. U. officials in Scotland on Sunday night to strike an agreement.
“It’s a giant deal,” Mr. Trump said during a news conference announcing the agreement, calling out the $750 billion and $600 billion figures. “That’s going to be great.”
The European Union and the United States have yet to release an official document outlining the deal, and negotiators are hammering out details to reach a joint statement.
In the case of the $600 billion investment pledge, the figure seems to come from corporate spending plans.
“We can’t force the company to do anything, nor will be able to pretend that we can, but we can talk to them, we can get their intentions and we can transmit that as a faithful indication to our partners in the U.S.,” Mr. Gill said.
That makes the European commitments flimsier than Japan’s, at least based on what is publicly known. Japanese officials offered what is expected to be a government-backed investment fund.
Europe’s investment offer “does not represent a significant change or development,” analysts at Deutsche Bank wrote in a research note, even if it “seems significant in magnitude.”
A senior U.S. official who briefed reporters about the deal said that if countries did not follow through on their investment commitments, Mr. Trump would simply raise tariffs again. Still, the administration may have little motivation to undercut the narrative that Mr. Trump’s deal-making is bringing hundreds of billions of dollars in investments to the United States.
The basis for Europe’s commitment to spend $750 billion on U.S. energy is also somewhat fuzzy. E.U. officials have said that the investment would play out over three years and would involve purchases of American liquefied natural gas, oil and nuclear energy products.
Anna-Kaisa Itkonen, a European Commission spokeswoman, clarified on Tuesday that $250 billion in annual energy investments included roughly the level of current energy imports — which she said totals $90 billion to $100 billion per year — along with possible additional oil and gas purchases and nuclear investments.
“These are all commercial decisions, made by the companies,” she said.
It could be challenging for Europeans to sharply ramp up investments in U.S. energy, even as the European Union is trying to diversify away from Russian oil and gas. The analysts at Deutsche Bank estimated that if the European Union replaces all Russian imports with American energy sources, it would spend about $140 billion per year.
The remainder could come from technology investments. Energy projects by U.S. companies in the European Union, notably in the nuclear industry, would count toward the total, Ms. Itkonen said.
Senior European Commission officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity this week to discuss the rough outline of the deal, said that the numbers were based on Europe’s energy needs and were not taken out of thin air. That sentiment was later echoed by Maros Sefcovic, the E.U. trade commissioner.
“We believe these numbers are achievable,” he said.
Liz Alderman and Ana Swanson contributed reporting.
Jeanna Smialek is the Brussels bureau chief for The Times.
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