US-EU trade deal leaves Europeans unhappy

United States President Donald Trump in his vacuous hyperbole has called the US-European Union (EU) trade deal as “the biggest deal ever made”. But for many European countries it was the best deal in a bad situation.

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German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said, “This agreement has succeeded in averting a trade conflict that would have hit the export-oriented German economy very hard.”

EU Trade Commissioner Maros Sefcovich told journalists, “This is clearly the best deal we could get under very difficult circumstances.”

He said that the 30 per cent tariff that Trump had threatened would have been “much, much worse”.

The deal now provides for I5 per cent tariff on all EU exports to the US, apart from buying $750 billion worth of energy, including oil, gas and nuclear from the US over the next three years.

Experts say that the US will have a challenge producing so much of energy resources to sell to Europe. The EU has also pledged $600 billion in European investments in the US, a little higher than the $550 billion Japanese investments in the US.