EU details strategy at US trade talks

Deal was about much more than just tariffs

- 

Survive and advance. That phrase, favoured by sports teams in big tournaments, sums up Europe's approach to the trade negotiations it just wrapped with the Trump administration.

For Europe, surviving in the first year of President Donald Trump’s second term means reaching an agreement on a trade deal that almost certainly won't help the continental economy — but isn’t as bad as it could have been.

Advancing means keeping Trump engaged in the foreign policy issues that have preoccupied many European leaders more this summer than their own domestic economic struggles. Those issues include the fate of the Iranian nuclear programme, the conflict and humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip and, most important, Ukraine's ongoing war against Russia's invasion.

“It’s not only about the trade: It’s about security, it’s about Ukraine, it’s about current geopolitical volatility,” Maros Sefcovic, the European Union trade commissioner, said at a briefing in Brussels on Monday. He said he could not go into the details of everything that was discussed in the room with Trump on Sunday, “but I can assure it was not just about the trade.”

The trade deal is centred on a tariff of 15% on most goods imposed by the United States on imports from the EU. It reflects a sort of risk aversion from leaders such as Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission; Friedrich Merz, the chancellor of Germany; and Emmanuel Macron, the president of France.