EU pushes back against Trump tariff by freezing trade deal

The European Union has warned Washington that United States President Donald Trump's hastily announced 15 percent global trade tariff may break the terms of the trade deal they agreed in Turnberry, Scotland last year.

The warning came after EU Commissioner for Trade and Economic Security Maros Sefcovic met with G7 trade ministers on Monday to talk about the new tariff, and following an EU assessment that found it would penalize some of the bloc's exports — including cheese and agricultural products — by levying more in taxes against them than would have been levied under the Turnberry deal.

Trump announced his new global tariff immediately after the US Supreme Court ruled his earlier use of emergency powers to apply tariffs to trading partners was unlawful and needed the support of lawmakers.

Trump immediately followed up on the ruling by using a different emergency law to temporarily apply a new 10 percent global tariff, which he quickly increased to 15 percent.

Prior to speaking to G7 trade ministers about the situation, Sefcovic sought clarification on the weekend from US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer and US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick.

While the Turnberry trade deal also calls for a 15 percent levy on most imports from the EU, it also requires the bloc to slash its tariffs on imports of US products, to zero percent.

Some EU lawmakers are now understood to be wondering why they would support the deal, if it puts the bloc in a worse position than it would be with no trade deal.

The uncertainty prompted the European Parliament on Monday to suspend legislative work on approving the EU-US trade deal while the bloc sought more information.

Bernd Lange, chair of the European Parliament's trade committee, said EU exports including not only cheese and agricultural products but also butter, plastics, textiles, and chemicals, could face higher tariffs under Trump's new tariffs than they would under the EU-US trade deal.

"The situation is now more uncertain than ever. This runs counter to the stability and predictability we sought to achieve with the Turnberry deal," Lange told Time magazine.

Kaja Kallas, the EU's foreign policy chief, told Bloomberg: "When we agreed to this trade deal, one of the arguments was that our companies would have stability. Predictability is a value and it is again gone."

The legally binding Turnberry deal still needs approval from the European Parliament and EU governments before it becomes law.

European Commission spokesman Olof Gill said the EU will not move forward with the deal until it knows it is the right thing to do.

"We look forward to our American counterparts explaining to us precisely what is happening," Germany's news outlet Deutsche Welle quoted him as saying.