The EU and US are looking to bring back a measure of stability and predictability to transatlantic trade with a joint statement defining new parameters for the EU-US trade relationship.
It is hoped the new framework for ‘fair, balanced and mutually beneficial transatlantic trade and investment’ will benefit businesses, workers and consumers on both sides of the Atlantic.
The Joint Statement, seen as a first step in a process to increase trade and improve market access in additional sectors, follows intensive negotiations led by EU Trade Commissioner Maros Sefcovic with US counterparts Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick and US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer.
The Joint Statement lays out in detail the new US tariff regime towards the EU, with a clear maximum, all-inclusive, tariff rate of 15% for the vast majority of EU exports, including strategic sectors such as cars, pharmaceuticals, semiconductors and lumber. Sectors which are already subject to Most Favoured Nation (MFN) tariffs of 15% or above, will not be subject to additional tariffs.
With regard to cars and car parts, the 15% US tariff ceiling will apply in tandem with the EU initiating the procedures for tariff reductions vis-à-vis US products.
In addition, effective as of 1 September, a number of product groups will benefit from a special regime, with only MFN tariffs applying. These include unavailable natural resources (such as cork), all aircraft and aircraft parts, generic pharmaceuticals and their ingredients and chemical precursors. Both sides are now agreeing to work to extend this regime to other product categories – a key deliverable for the EU.
The EU and US signalled their intention to work on ringfencing their economies from overcapacity in the steel and aluminium sectors, and also to work on secure supply chains between each other, including through a tariff rate quota solution for EU exports of steel and aluminium, and their derivative products.
The agreement was hailed by the Trade Commissioner as a serious and strategic deal: “The alternative – a trade war with sky-high tariffs and political escalation – would harm jobs, growth, and businesses on both sides of the Atlantic,” he said. “Instead, the EU and US must chart a cooperative path forward, aligned in our shared ambition to re-industrialise and strengthen economic resilience.”
The EU makes clear its view that high tariffs are detrimental to the global economy, but this negotiated outcome, it says, avoids harmful escalation and “creates a basis for continued dialogue and the development of the transatlantic relationship”.
EU-US trade in goods and services has doubled over the last decade, surpassing €1.6 trillion in 2024, with €867 billion of trade in goods and €817 billion of trade in services.
