Bringing an end to the months-long standoff between the two global economic superpowers, the United States and European Union signed a trade deal, US President Donald Trump announced on Sunday.
Following negotiations between Trump, and European Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen in Scotland the deal was finalised. As per the agreement, a 15 percent tariff has been imposed on EU goods entering the US and significant US energy and military equipments purchased by EU, BBC reported.
The list of goods on which tariffs will be imposed include cars, computer chips and pharmaceuticals.
The new tariff comes as opposed to the 30% import tax rate that Trump had threatened to implement. Now, the 27-member bloc will open its markets to US exporters with zero per cent tariffs on certain products.
In a bid to reorder the global economy and reduce US’s age old trade deficit, Trump had imposed tariffs against major US trade partners. Besides EU, he has signed tariff agreements with the UK, Japan and the Philippines. However, he has still not been able to achieve his goal of "90 deals in 90 days".
Trump has consistently said that the European Union was "formed to screw the United States" on trade and has pointed out that the US merchandise trade deficit with the EU was his main point of contention. According to the US Census Bureau data, the US trade deficit with the EU reached $235 billion in 2024.
According to Von der Leyen, the two countries have also agreed on zero tariffs on both sides for a range of “strategic” goods like aircraft and aircraft parts, certain chemicals, semiconductor equipment, some agricultural products as well as some natural resources and critical raw materials, Mint reported.
Both the countries will keep working to add more products to the list, she added.
In addition to that, the EU side will also purchase natural gas, oil and nuclear fuel to replace Russian energy supplies and Europeans would invest an additional USD 600 billion in the US, the Mint report stated.
