Why Europe and the US are continuing to haggle on trade

It’s been nearly four months since Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, and President Donald Trump made a handshake deal to resolve trade tensions between their economies. But details of the trade pact have proved contentious — and they have been up for debate again this week, when American trade officials visited their counterparts in Brussels.

Jamieson Greer, the US trade representative, met Maros Sefcovic, the European Union’s trade commissioner, on Sunday. Both Greer and Howard Lutnick, the US commerce secretary, attended a meeting of trade ministers in Brussels on Monday.

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The visit was an opportunity for a back and forth between two of the world’s most active trading partners at a moment when their trade relationship remains somewhat in flux. Both sides have signed onto a trade agreement in principle — one that has left the 27-nation bloc facing 15 per cent tariffs across the board, with various exceptions. But key parts of the deal have not been completed and carried out.

Europe has been hoping for a better deal on a list of items, including wine and spirits, steel, aluminum, medical devices and pasta. The United States has implied that the Europeans must do more to meet their commitments, including making promised investments. US officials also continue to push for changes, such as Europe rolling back key technology regulations.

In an interview with Fox News on Sunday, Greer said that the Europeans had started a legal process to meet their trade commitments and that it was well underway. “We’re here to just take stock of that progress,” said Greer, who was speaking from outside the European Union buildings in Brussels.

“We’re happy to talk to them about, you know, alternatives in the future and next steps,” he added. “But I want to make sure that the current deal is fully implemented.”

Ahead of the meeting, a senior Trump administration official said that the Americans aimed to address issues that hadn’t been fully resolved, including challenges related to digital services taxes, discrimination against US companies and pharmaceutical pricing.

While the American side has been pushing Europe to pare back its digital regulations for months — a call Lutnick reiterated on Monday — European leaders have resisted on key points, especially regarding their policing of speech on large social media platforms. Europe paints the issue as a matter of sovereignty.

“There is a risk that Europe does not understand that everything with this administration is a constant negotiation,” said Jörn Fleck, senior director with the Europe Center at the Atlantic Council, a research institute.

The US official said that European requests for further tariff reductions were “out of sync” with the progress of the negotiations, suggesting that a framework the parties agreed to in July would need to go fully into effect before the United States reduced its tariffs further.

But that could take time. The European Union has put forward legislation that would cut tariffs on US industrial goods and some agricultural exports as part of its side of the trade deal.

That legislation still needs the approval of the European Parliament, where some lawmakers are worried that the United States is not holding up its end of the bargain.

European officials remain concerned about US steel and aluminum tariffs. Leaders from the bloc have made it clear that they believe the 15 per cent cap should extend beyond products specifically listed in the deal, such as cars and wood. For now, Europe still faces a 50 per cent duty on steel and aluminum, and on many products that contain those metals.

Bernd Lange, the German social democrat who chairs the European Parliament’s trade committee, has pointed out that the list of products using steel and aluminum and covered by a 50 per cent tariff had expanded since the deal was struck.

“Only if the US reduces this 50 per cent back to 15 per cent will I allow the reduction, a zero percent tariff on steel and steel products in Europe,” he said at a news conference last month.

The European Commission, the bloc’s executive arm, has also suggested that it wants to see the lower rate apply more broadly.

“The single, all-inclusive 15 per cent cap on tariffs for EU exports to the US agreed in the deal should be applicable also to aluminum derivatives,” Sefcovic, the trade commissioner, said in a speech last week. Still, Sefcovic made it clear Monday that there was little expectation for immediate progress toward lower metal tariffs.

“Today it’s not about negotiations,” he said as he headed into the meeting in Brussels. “This is about the stock taking exercise, and I think this is also about the political assessment of the EU-US bilateral relations.”

He emphasized, both verbally and on social media, how much Europe has been investing in the US and in American energy — key asks of the Trump administration’s.

In the United States, Trump’s tariffs and trade deals face uncertainty from a legal challenge at the Supreme Court. The court is expected to deliver a ruling within weeks or months that would uphold the tariffs that Trump has imposed, or order him to remove them.

If the court rules against Trump, his administration may be left scrambling to use other legal authorities to impose tariffs, and to persuade trading partners to uphold their deals.

Even so, for industries in Europe, a final deal between the two nations — preferably with the wish list of carve-outs that the EU is planning to present to the United States this week — is the priority.

“We are hoping that we will be on that list, and, more importantly, we are hoping that the list will be received favorably,” said Pauline Bastidon, director for trade and economic affairs at Spirits Europe, an alcohol industry group.

But she noted that it was not clear how welcome such suggestions would be. “I believe there is one man who decides,” she said, referring to Trump.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.