President Trump’s trade negotiators and their European Union counterparts are working frantically to strike a deal before July 9. But what emerges within the next few days — in the best case — could shape up to be more of a rough outline than a full-fledged agreement.
The 27-nation bloc, which is the United States’ largest trading partner when both goods and services are taken into account, has also been one of the Trump administration’s toughest sparring partners over the past four months.
When Mr. Trump began to slap both sector-specific and across-the-board tariffs on America’s trading partners earlier this year, he had clear goals in mind for the European Union, which he said was formed to “screw” the United States.
He wanted Europeans to stop policing American technology companies so aggressively. He wanted Europe’s nations to change their system of value added taxes. He wanted them to buy more American cars, and he wanted them to shrink their trade imbalance in goods, which stood at about $236 billion in 2024, per U.S. statistics.
But the Europe Union pushed back hard. It has made it clear that it cannot change its taxation system, and that it would not change its digital services laws. It offered to buy more American industrial goods, but initially asked for the United States to drop tariffs on manufactured products in return. And it threatened, repeatedly, to retaliate by imposing tariffs on products ranging from pajamas to soybeans.
After months of back-and-forth that has included public barbs and many hours of negotiation, what is likely to emerge over the next two weeks is a deal that does not satisfy either side’s stated goals.
If you can even call it a deal.
“The expectation that we have is that by the 9th, something will be there — but it might be very little,” said Brando Benifei, a member of the European Parliament and chair of its diplomatic delegation with the United States.
Diplomats and officials in Europe are increasingly expecting an agreement in principle of a few pages, said three European officials with knowledge of the talks who spoke on condition of anonymity because the negotiations had not been finalized.
Even that could easily be disrupted. President Trump’s sudden decision on Friday to terminate trade talks with Canada over the country’s planned digital services tax was a sobering reminder to Europeans that negotiations remain fragile. Canada announced on Sunday night that it would scrap the tax.
Still, the United States negotiators sent the European Union a rough outline of their offer for a deal late in the week, Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, said at a news conference last week in Brussels. The commission, the bloc’s executive arm, was vetting it.
As the deadline nears, the expectation in Brussels is that Mr. Trump’s across-the-board 10 percent tariff is likely to remain intact, and that at least some version of sector tariffs on automobiles, steel and aluminum could stay. European negotiators have been pushing for exemptions, hoping to blunt the bite.
“The goal of the E.U. is obviously to turn the 10 percent into Swiss cheese — to put very big holes in it,” said Mujtaba Rahman, managing director for Europe at the Eurasia Group.
At the same time, Europeans are likely to promise to buy American, including by ramping up liquefied natural gas imports and by making investments in technology and defense. And they could promise to work with the United States in pushing back on unfair trading practices from China. They could simplify standards on cars and corporate governance — in line with an ongoing E.U.-wide push — and sell it as a win for the Americans.
What is emerging is a loose blueprint that is not unlike the agreement Britain signed with the United States in May.
But under the surface, tensions linger. One centers on what the United States will do with European pharmaceuticals, which are the bloc’s No. 1 export to the United States and on which Mr. Trump has laid the groundwork for tariffs. And Europe is flatly opposed to meaningfully changing its approach to digital regulation, which had been one of America’s major asks.
“This is for us absolutely untouchable,” Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, said of digital laws in a recent news conference.
Questions also remain about whether Europe will activate retaliatory tariffs. European policymakers have readied a list of more than 20 billion euros’ worth of goods that they could hit with counter-tariffs and have been finalizing another list of more than €90 billion, and some officials want them to use that ammunition.
“We will need to retaliate and rebalance in some key sectors if the U.S. insists on an asymmetrical deal,” Stéphane Séjourné, who is the commissioner for industrial strategy, recently told Bloomberg News.
And the possibility of a breakdown in talks and a spiraling escalation remains — in the Trump era, worse outcomes are just a social media post away.
But for now, experts increasingly predict that even a rough deal could be the start of a denouement.
“There is a sense, looking at the template that the U.K. struck, that there may be enough here,” said Mr. Rahman, who does not expect Europe to retaliate. “Ultimately, the conclusion from the E.U. side is that the U.S. doesn’t have the stomach for a fight.”
Jeanna Smialek is the Brussels bureau chief for The Times.
The post As Trade Deadline Nears, Europe Preps for a Scant Outline of a Deal appeared first on New York Times.
