Europe gets US trade deal in writing

Trump keeps high tariffs on EU vehicle exports until bloc lowers levies on US goods

- TONY ROMM JEANNA SMIALEK

The United States and the European Union on Thursday published much-anticipated details of the trade agreement they struck verbally last month, which will see Washington maintain high tariffs on vehicles imported from the 27-nation bloc until it takes steps to lower its levies on many American industrial and agricultural products.

The terms, outlined in a joint statement released by two of the world's largest and most intertwined economies, set a clearer framework for a truce announced in July that averted a damaging tit-for-tat escalation in President Donald Trump's punishing global trade war.

But that deal was a handshake arrangement, and negotiators have been scrambling ever since to put it into writing. European officials have been eager for a formal document, hoping it would solidify promises the administration had made to spare the bloc from worse outcomes. The newly published version is not a legally enforceable pact, but it is a step toward one.

Its backbone remains unchanged: The United States will maintain a 15% tariff on most goods arriving from EU member countries, a rate that Trump officially imposed in an executive order that took effect this month.

In a win for Europe, that rate applies to some of its biggest exports, including pharmaceuticals, many of which will remain taxed at 15% even after the United States finalises an expected set of tariffs for foreign-made medicines that could be as high as 200%.

Trump has looked to impose the duties on pharmaceuticals separately, and globally, on national security grounds, with additional tariffs planned for other critical sectors such as computer chips and lumber. But Europe will be spared from those higher rates as well, the two sides reaffirmed Thursday.