MEPs have ratified von der Leyen's Trump surrender, but with caveats
Centrists in the EU Parliament have pushed through ratification of the 'surrender deal' despite the US already violating it. The far right voted against it, again seizing the moral high ground.
After months of pressure from EU national governments, the European Parliament yesterday ratified the ‘surrender deal’ offered by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to Donald Trump on his Scottish golf course last July. It is a lose-lose-lose deal for Europe.
The upside is supposed to be that EU exports to the US are tariffed at 15%. That’s 5% lower than what Trump proposed on “liberation day” one year ago, but 15% higher than what existed before. That’s supposed to be good for the EU because in exchange for Europe accepting it, and making a whole series of other concessions, the White House agreed not to set any new tariffs higher than 15%. The additional concessions include Europe setting all import duties on US products to zero, making $750 billion in payments for US energy and $600 billion in European investment into the US economy, and implicit promises to weaken EU laws (which is already being done through von der Leyen’s Omnibus proposals). In other words, this is not a “trade deal” in any way shape or form. It is entirely concessions by the EU, in exchange for a promise from the US to only punish Europe up to a certain threshold.
It is therefor not surprising that the directly-elected citizen representatives in the European Parliament looked sceptically at the deal and were in no hurry to ratify it. There is only one part of the deal that needs ratification: setting EU import duties to zero. And that is what MEPs voted to do yesterday.
“The EU-US deal embodies European capitulation to Trump, with 15% tariffs on EU exports and 0% tariffs on US imports,” noted the Parliament’s far-left GUE group with a tabled objection. “In accepting this deal, the European Union has failed to understand that transatlantic relations have collapsed and Trump cannot be held to his word. With annexation threats still hanging over Greenland, a ‘full trade embargo’ threatened against Spain, a US Supreme Court ruling striking down Trump’s tariffs. and the global economy thrown into chaos by Trump’s war on Iran, the EU cannot enter into any agreement in good faith with the United States.”
The US government may have been criticising the glacial pace of ratification, but the reason for that pace is that even before the Greenland threats the White House was not and is not implementing what