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The United States and the European Union are not lacking in time to conclude an agreement on commercial prices – and analysts say that several key bonding points could make an agreement impossible.
Negotiations have been slow since the United States and the EU temporarily reduced duties to each other until July 9. If an agreement is not agreed by then, Complete reciprocal import prices 50% on EU products and the block large countermeasures are ready to enter into force.
“We are talking, but I don’t think they still offer a fair agreement,” US President Donald Trump said on Tuesday, increasingly disturbing hopes of an imminent agreement.
So what is the right thing between the two parties, who had a relationship value 1.68 euros (1.93 dollars billion) in 2024?
Big Tech Regulation
A contention apple reported by experts was the EU regulation of particularly large technological companies. The block has faced regular criticism from the United States after imposing historic rules on technology giants concerning transparency, competition and moderation.
“Trump’s administration is actively seeking to use commercial negotiations to force the EU to capitulate and weaken the regulatory environment,” CNBC Alberto Rizzi, European Council for Foreign Relations, told CNBC.
“However, for Europeans, any interference in its internal regulation of digital platforms is not acceptable and goes against its commitment to fight against disinformation and hate speech,” he added.
Philip Luck, director of the Economy Program of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), echoes concerns, but said that the EU could potentially abandon land without undergoing its principles.
But the parties “have not yet fallen at this level of conversation,” he said.
Taxation
Taxes are another major area of disagreement between the United States and the EU, said Rizzi, noting that Trump considers prices as representing the so-called unjust taxes imposed on American companies and goods by European countries.
This includes so -called value -added, or VAT taxes, which are taken at each stage of the supply chain as the value of a product changes. Although very common worldwide, the United States does not work with VAT, and Trump presented it as a commercial barrier – and a justification for prices.
“However, tax treats with value added by the EU are exactly national and foreign goods in the same way and in the eyes of Europeans, taxation is a purely national question that should not be part of a commercial discussion,” said Rizzi. “Taxation is a red line for the EU in commercial discussions.”
Incompatible world visions
A much wider problem between Washington and Brussels seems to be a fundamental lack of confidence and alignment with negotiations and their objective.
Jacob Kirkegaard, a non -resident researcher of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, went so far as to say that “there is really only one point of collision, it is that Trump wants prices on the EU, and that the EU does not have it”.
CSIS’s chance has set a similar tone, reporting that, philosophically, the United States and the EU have very different views in talks.
“This [U.S.] The administration considers these negotiations through an objective of how partners can concede to the concessions to help us. They do not consider this as a traditional reciprocal commercial conversation, where we give something and they give something, “he said.
The EU has a much more traditional opinion, he said, as shown by its suggestion of zero-zero prices-which faced a repression of the White House.
European politicians are “proud people who see themselves on an equal footing in the United States” who cannot make “constant” concessions, and they do not feel either, according to Luck.
Will there be an agreement?
The United States seems little likely to accept a zero agreement for zero or where prices are lowered for both parties, said Luck.
It is also doubtful that the EU can conclude an agreement like the United Kingdom, which agreed to certain quotas and prices on certain critical sectors.
This is because first, the block would probably not accept conditions similar to the United Kingdom, added luck, but also “because it [U.S.] The administration has a kind of much more important fundamental complaints concerning European policy. “”
However, he sees a scenario where the EU can accept a lower price, like the 10% currently in place – but only because it owes it.
Rizzi also suggested that a “limited agreement that fell or freeze prices on specific sectors” could occur. But, he noted, this does not mean that a large agreement is imminent.
Others are even more pessimistic.
“I am very skeptical about what an agreement occurs,” Kirkegaard said, who is also a principal researcher in Bruegel.
“I think that it is much more likely that there is no agreement, that the EU ripostes then, and then we will have to see if Trump does with what he did with China: that he retaliates again, and perhaps the EU ripostes again.”
He warned that de -escalation – and an agreement – would only be possible when a very high economic threshold of economic pain is reached.
