Europe Rushes to Negotiate a Trade Deal as Trump's Team Voices Indifference

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/16/us/politics/european-union-trump-
tariffs.html

Maros Sefcovic, one of the European Union's top trade negotiators, is 
headed to Washington on Wednesday to talk to Trump administration 
officials in a bid to stop painful 30 percent tariffs from kicking in on 
Aug. 1.

But at a time when E.U. officials are hoping that President Trump’s latest 
tariff threat is more of a negotiating gambit than a serious possibility, 
the latest comments from the White House have offered little 
encouragement.

Mr. Trump is “indifferent whether we take in the 30 percent rate or 
whether the Europeans come to us with a much better deal,” Scott Bessent, 
the Treasury secretary, said on Bloomberg Television on Tuesday, later 
calling this moment a “generational opportunity to reset trade.”

Mr. Trump told reporters outside the White House on Tuesday that “we 
already have a deal with the E.U.,” referring to the letter he sent last 
week to Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, 
threatening to increase across-the-board tariffs.

That is the backdrop of the latest visit by Mr. Sefcovic, the European 
Union trade commissioner. He is expected to meet separately with Howard 
Lutnick, the commerce secretary, and Jamieson Greer, the U.S. trade 
representative, said Olof Gill, a spokesman for the European Commission, 
the European Union’s executive arm.

Mr. Sefcovic has flown to Washington repeatedly in recent months, and has 
spoken by phone with Mr. Greer and Mr. Lutnick already this week.

He and other European trade negotiators had thought until last week that 
their constant contact with the Trump administration was about to yield 
results and that they were close to striking a deal. The agreement was 
widely expected to include a 10 percent across-the-board tariff rate, 
while securing exceptions for key products. Instead, they received Mr. 
Trump’s letter on July 11 threatening to boost levies to a level that 
European policymakers have warned would be devastating for the trans-
Atlantic trading relationship.

It is not clear what Europe could offer the United States that it has not 
already put forward. The bloc was willing to accept higher tariffs, to buy 
more American energy and to invest more in American technology, among 
other concessions. But it has refused to bend to some Trump administration 
demands, including changing how it regulates large technology companies 
and online speech.

“I don’t think there’s this magic” solution, said Jörn Fleck, a senior 
director with the Europe Center at the Atlantic Council, a think tank. “I 
think it’s in the Trump administration’s hands.”

The European Union has been drawing up plans to retaliate if negotiations 
fail by hitting a wide array of American imports with tariffs.

When asked on Tuesday about those plans, Mr. Trump said simply that “I 
don’t know how they can retaliate.”

“They’ve treated us very badly, but now they’re treating us very nicely,” 
he added. “I think everybody’s going to be happy with the E.U.”


-- 
November 5, 2024 - Congratulations President Donald Trump.  We look 
forward to America being great again.

We live in a time where intelligent people are being silenced so that 
stupid people won't be offended.

Every day is an IQ test. Some pass, some, not so much.

Thank you for cleaning up the disasters of the 2008-2017, 2020-2024 Obama 
/ Biden / Harris fiascos, President Trump.

Under Barack Obama's leadership, the United States of America became the 
The World According To Garp.  Obama sold out heterosexuals for Hollywood 
queer liberal democrat donors.