Trump pushes EU into trade 'deal' that several EU leaders aren't happy about The US president and EU chief agreed to a deal over the weekend, averting a trade war between the world's two largest economies, but the agreement has a number of European leaders calling foul. Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, published a brief outline of the new trade deal terms in a press release …
Putin said European politicians had "fought" against Trump and interfered in US domestic politics. He suggested that they were disoriented by Trump's victory, as they had been "mentally more comfortable" with Biden because Trump has "different views on what’s right and what’s wrong".
Quote: "But I assure you, Trump, with his character and his determination, will restore order there pretty quickly. And all of them – mark my words, this will happen soon – will stand at their master’s feet and wag their tails obediently. Everything will fall into place."
Putin in an interview on Feb 2 2025
And so it came to pass and the EU wag their tails obediently.
**I** pay VAT on any good I buy in EU, regardless of its origin - the farm next to me, or something from the other side of the world
US pays no VAT. US citizens exiting the EU can ask a VAT reimbourse, because it's not a tax they have to pay.
VAT is a tax paid by EU citizens and residenfs. - and it's paid only by the final consumer. Sellers gets it from customers on behalf of the state, and have to turn it to the revenue service in separate filings.
Just like US sales tax. Is US sales tax a tariff on EU goods?
VAT and tariffs are two totally different things.
"Fucking Usasians still can't grasp the concept"
Fairly convincing evidence your observation can be applied to at least 30% of that population in relation to pretty much anything.
What would you expect from a people who imagined the tax on tea could be reduced by first dumping the tea into Boston harbour ?
What would you expect from a people who imagined the tax on tea could be reduced by first dumping the tea into Boston harbour ?
The American Mafia was protesting a tax cut from ~100% down to like 10% because they couldn't smuggle in untaxed goods for less than the cost of taxed goods. Their response was to destroy the taxed products to leave the people with no alternative but to buy from them.
It's paid at each stage, but the business claims it back.
Best example I have seen:
Paper bag manufacturer buys wood to make the bags. Pays VAT on the wood, claims it back.
Distributor buys paper bags from manufacturer, claims it back.
Sweet shop buys paper bags from distributor, claims it back.
Sweet shop give the paper bags away to customer for free with sweets in them.
Customer pays VAT on the sweets.
Omitted the value added at each stage, so throughout your sales chain output VAT is greater than input VAT, so at each step there is a VAT payment to government.
As a consultancy/service business my input VAT is minimal, hence the vast majority of my output VAT (the 20% line on my invoice) is paid to HMRC.
You don't undestand how VAT works. Every stage of the process pays is, but also detracts it. It's the ultimate consumer, the one who can't detract anything, that pays it.
See https://taxation-customs.ec.europa.eu/taxation/vat/vat-directive/how-does-vat-work_en
VAT was introduced to avoid the downsides of sales taxes applied at each stage - which incremented prices quickly, and damaged more goods that wen through more stages compared to others.
VAT IS NOT a tax on business.
Implications for US businesses
For American companies expanding into Europe, VAT introduces both opportunities and challenges. If you are selling goods or services in the EU, you will likely need to register for VAT in the countries where you operate, collect it from customers, and remit it to the government.
https://eaccny.com/news/member-news/transatlantic-trade-monitor-facts-you-need-now-understanding-european-vat-a-guide-for-us-folks/
VAT is sales tax. Levied on any VAT rated product regardless of where it comes from. Same rate charged on imported & domestic products. Businesses can claim VAT back, so in the end only the consumer ends up paying it (or very small businesses that don't register for VAT.)
In addition to this, many products are not VAT rated, so no VAT is charged on those products regardless of where they come from, domestic or imported. Things like fresh food, children's clothes, sanitary products.
List of different VAT rates in the UK:
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/rates-of-vat-on-different-goods-and-services
List of GST free (GST = VAT) products in Australia:
https://www.ato.gov.au/businesses-and-organisations/gst-excise-and-indirect-taxes/gst/when-to-charge-gst-and-when-not-to/gst-free-sales
A tariff is a fee charged to an importer when they bring their goods through customs.
Short version, VAT (GST) is absolutely nothing like a tariff. Unless you think US state sales taxes are a tariff as well.
Examples.
A factory exists in a hypothetical country with a VAT rate of 10% and tariff rate of 10%.
The factory imports a machine from the US for use in the factory. Pays a 10% tariff & 10% VAT.
Claims the VAT back, so no VAT ends up being paid by anyone.
They have to pay the tariff, so they increase their prices as their cost of manufacture is higher.
The factory makes toasters. It sells them to a retailer charging 10% VAT. The retailer claims the VAT back.
The retailer also imports toasters from the US. Pays 10% tariff & 10% VAT. Claims the VAT back put pays the tariff. Passes the tariff along in the retail cost of the toaster.
A customer buys 2 toasters. One for home, one for his business. Pays 10% VAT regardless of whether he buys the locally made one, or the imported one.
He claims the VAT back on the toaster for the business, but has to pay it for the one for home.
The factory exports toasters to the US. No VAT is paid.
The US importer pays whatever tariff trump has put in place to US govt customs.
The importer sells the toaster to Walmart passing the tariff along as increased cost.
Walmart also buys toasters from the US manufacturer.
Walmart sells the toasters, charging the same state sales tax regardless of which toaster the customer buys.
The factory exports toasters to a 3rd country. No VAT is paid.
The US manufacturer also exports to the same 3rd country.
Both toasters are subject to the same sales tax regime that exists in that country and whatever tariff regime they have.
In none of these scenarios does VAT give an advantage to the local toaster manufacturer.
It is a consumer sales tax.
The reality up till now is that Central and Eastern Europe depends on gas and nuclear station parts and fuel from Russia. Buying gas from the US is feasible but it requires facilities to receive the liquid gas and expand it, then the pipelines need to be modified to transport the gas in the opposite direction. Maintaining the power stations require commitments from Westinghouse and Siemens and others to produce the parts and fuel. So, it is easy to criticize Orban and Fico if you ignore all that is important, difficult and expensive.
Increased energy cooperation will see the EU replace purchases of Russian gas and oil with liquefied natural gas, oil, and nuclear fuels from the United States. The EU will also increase its purchases of leading-edge US AI chips that von der Leyen said "will help power our AI gigafactories and help the US to maintain their technological edge."
But will it? I thought EU procurement rules had things like competitive tendering for public sector projects. So if Brussels wants to fund an 'AI gigafactory', can it legally restrict bidders to US components only? Or the big one "the EU has promised to buy $750 billion worth of energy over three years". I know the EUrocracy is big and bloated, but does the EU itself really burn through $250bn a year in LNG? Or are the EU's buildings leased, under FM contracts or just multi-year utilities contracts with assorted private gas companies who buy gas via the commodity markets or contracts with gas producers?
Ursula might be able to use her mobile phone to buy billions of vaccine doses, but fairly sure she can't do the same with gas purchase.
Also not convinced the US can supply fuel for Russian NPPs. ISTR they took over producing fuel rods for Ukraine's ZNPP but do they actually have capacity to support all the Russian NPPs operated in the EU?
(Oh, and of course UK got a better(?) deal than the EU because Brexit. Cue those thumbs!)
This post has been deleted by its author
Or via Germany's new LNG terminals
https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/liquefied-gas-does-lng-have-place-germanys-energy-future
https://energy-terminal.de/en
https://gasprocessingnews.com/news/2025/04/update-how-germany-is-building-up-lng-import-terminals/
His usual anti-EU barfing that he thinks make him look good at home (translated):
"The American president is a heavyweight when it comes to negotiations, while Madam Chairperson is a lightweight."
https://www.dr.dk/nyheder/udland/spiste-trump-von-der-leyen-til-morgenmad-saadan-er-handelsaftale-modtaget-i#:~:text=Ungarns%20premierminister,en%20letv%c3%a6gter%2E
"The American president is a heavyweight when it comes to negotiations, while Madam Chairperson is a lightweight."
Madame Chairperson is smart. US LNG is more affordable and better than that nasty Russian gas. European deserves premium CH4, not cheap, nasty CH4. It has been entertaining today listening to Ursula trying to gaslight Europe, who don't seem to be willing to buy what she's selling. Especially coming on top of her proposed €2tn budget demand. Could be a bit of a triple-play. Vote on budget, vote on this trade deal, and then another vote of no confidence.
The one element here is that buying from the US means you're not funding Russia. Especially as sanctions against Russia isn't helping persuade them to stop blowing things up in Ukraine.
So even if the CH4 is otherwise identical: It's better to get it from a country that's not blowing things up in a country you're trying to aid, than from the country who is blowing things up in the country you're trying to aid.
It's better to get it from a country that's not blowing things up in a country you're trying to aid
like the USA and Gaza ? Or you might explain how "we" are "aiding" Ukraine : our "aid" has resulted in that country being blown to pieces and having lost 10 millions of its population. Had "we" not tried to "aid" in any way, Ukraine and its population would be much better off. Even for the Asov neonazi brigade, who could continue parading with WaffenSS symbols undisturbed.
And that by ignoring that much of the LNG that Europe is buying is still Russian anyway, just repackaged by some intermediary.
Ah yes, Russia would ride in and let everyone stay in place and not do any atrocities, those stoopid Ukrainians don't understand, Russia is only committing war crimes because they HAVE to!
I hope you're a paid shill, because if you're doing this for free that's just embarrassing.
Ah yes, Russia would ride in and let everyone stay in place and not do any atrocities, those stoopid Ukrainians don't understand, Russia is only committing war crimes because they HAVE to!
Ukraine has been committing their own share of war crimes as well. But that situation is a disaster of our 'leaders' own making. The US did the usual regime change thing in 2014, with the full support of the EU. That kicked off Ukraine's civil war with Ukraine committing war crimes against their own population. The civil war didn't go well for Ukraine, so we got Minsk. A 'ceasefire' that was regularly violated, but was intended to give Ukraine breathing room to re-arm and re-consititute their forces so they could attempt to regain control of the territory they'd lost.. Except of course Russia knew this was coming, intervened and the SMO happened.
So the West's cunning plan rather failed, but has also been very profitable for the arms industry. Trump promised to end the conflict in 24hrs, but obviously failed because Ukraine isn't interested in any realistic peace deal. So now Trump issues deadlines, which because of Minsk are going to be ignored because Russia isn't going to allow Ukraine, the US or EU any breathing space to re-arm or re-constitute again. The losers in a conflict generally don't get to set terms, so the conflict will continue until a lasting peace deal can be negotiated.. Which Ukraine almost had in Istanbul, except our 'leaders' are determined to fight to the last Ukrainian.
And Ukraine's leaders are OK with this and want another $200bn to keep the grift flowing and conflict going for the next year. Except of course Zelensky also took careful aim at both feet and shut down their anti-corruption offices to stop them investigating and prosecuting Zelensky's clique.. Which was a huge mistake as its provided a reason to turn off the money spigot. Many in the West don't understand that the reason we're pouring money into Ukraine is to pay the salaries of their public sector 'employees', many of whom have given themselves large pay rises since 2022.
So it's a huge mess. Expecting the EU to take over funding Ukraine might prove popular with US voters, but isn't exactly popular with EU. Neither are the cuts to social services that will be needed to fund Fotress Europe and the Pan-European Defence Force to complement, or eventually replace NATO. Especially when the US expects the EU to buy American, and not use money to prop up EU defence contractors. Doctors and nurses going on strike for more pay, sorry, can't because we need to buy bombs and give Ukraine pay rises instead.
So we're living in interesting times. Ursula didn't get any deal because she can't act unilaterally. The deal will just accelerate the collapse of the EU, which might be what the US wants to remove a competitor. Or the EU might decide that a Eurasian trading alliance and economic bloc is better for business than the US extortion racket.
They need something to distract from the revelation that Hillary Clinton was suffering some serious mental health issues in 2016 and that the whole 'Russia Russia Russia' thing was entirely fabricated to try and win Hillary the election.
The reality is that no-one in the upper levels of the federal govt wants those files to see the light of day.
I assume you think your "whataboutism" landed. The Dems are largely shit too, I'm not into your "stick up for your team" politics.
You wrote "Dems seem to have an Epstein fetish - the rest of us don’t care."
That's what I replied to. Maybe Dems are more interested now that they know that Trump is on the list. That's the bastard depravity of politicians. But one thing - it shows they DIDN'T know who was on the list beforehand, so it's not as if they were protecting anyone.
Maybe there really is a good reason, maybe it's just gutter politics. I don't really know, but that wasn't what I was talking about. What I'm asking you, Herman, is "Why don't you care?"
"Dems want paedophiles punished, maga doesn't care" isn't the hot take you think it is.
Dems sitting on the files for the Biden years and doing nothing isn't the hot take you think it is either. Especially when the Dems had two bites of that cherry, first under Obama, and then Biden. Especially if Trump being in the Epsteiin files is really true. The Dems suddenly now deciding it's in the public interest stinks, but that's typically of the stench emanating from a lot of swamps.
My bet is Maxwell gets a pardon in exchange for a gag order, and the swamp carries on trying to bury this story. Strange the way the only imprisonment has been for sex traffiking when there were apparently no clients other than Epstein.
My reply to you is basically the same as the one I gave Herman just now.
What I will add, though, is you're British. You have no excuse for assuming I have some tribal loyalty to the Democrat party. That's usually the viewpoint of a dumb American (And I don't mean all Americans, I mean the Americans that are dumb - gotta love the ambiguities of the English language!)
So accusing me of thinking "Dems doing nothing for years" is a hot take, is doubly disingenuous, and the sort of ad-hom thrown around by someone with no real argument.
Are *you* really so tribal in your politics that you think I'm somehow giving the Dems a pass if it turns out they were covering up?
That blind dedication to a cause is the typical mindset of someone who thinks Brexit is a good thing, even now, with all the evidence to the contrary smacking them in the face.
Ahhhh... Ok.
So accusing me of thinking "Dems doing nothing for years" is a hot take, is doubly disingenuous, and the sort of ad-hom thrown around by someone with no real argument.
Nope, you're now being triply disingeneous. First you started with this-
"Dems want paedophiles punished, maga doesn't care"
With quotes generally meaning.. well, quoting someone. Except those were your words and a made up quote implying that Dems want punishment, MAGA doesn't care.. Yet most of the current fuss is because MAGA, or Republicans do care and are expecting Trump to investigare it the Epstein fiasco properly, as he promised during his election campaign.
Are *you* really so tribal in your politics that you think I'm somehow giving the Dems a pass if it turns out they were covering up?
Yep. Why else would you write that the Dems want paedophiles punished when they had every opportunity to conduct a thorough investigation while Obama and Biden were Presidents. Part of the reason why Trump beat Harris is because Americans believed the Dems were covering up and protecting Epstein's clients.
That blind dedication to a cause is the typical mindset of someone who thinks Brexit is a good thing, even now, with all the evidence to the contrary smacking them in the face.
Ermm.. OK, evidence like the UK getting lower tariffs? Or the UK not having to committ to 1/28th (or more) of the EU's €2tn budget proposal? Or $600bn US investment requirement? Or the $250bn a year LNG & oil purchasing requirement? Or the unspecified amount of US weapons they expect the EU to buy, rather than France and Germany expecting a large chunk of that €2tn EU budget to go to their defence companies rather than American ones.
So thanks to the UK being sovereign, we've dodged a few large bullets. Especially as we can probably buy a pile of Radway Green ammo from Royal Ordnance, and now that's part of BAe counts towards American defence spending because BAe is a US company for ITAR and accounting purposes..
A large part of why the UK has a better deal (for now) is because the UK bends over and does what they're told.
The EU, not so much.
So maybe that flex about sovereignty just means you're somebody else's bitch. Plus, you scored a better deal with the US (for now) while having self-applied a much worse one with your closest trading partners for years. If you think that's coming out ahead......
@heyrick
"A large part of why the UK has a better deal (for now) is because the UK bends over and does what they're told."
Thats a new one. So if the EU grabbed the lube and bent over they would get a better deal? Doesnt quite sound like the idea of the EU being able to take on the big players.
"So maybe that flex about sovereignty just means you're somebody else's bitch"
So you wanna be the big guys prison bitch in hopes of protection from being someone elses prison bitch? I know you didnt mention prison but outside of that environment sounds even more cowardly and daft.
"Plus, you scored a better deal with the US (for now) while having self-applied a much worse one with your closest trading partners for years. If you think that's coming out ahead......"
Was a naff deal with the 'closest trading partners' so in fairness yeah we seem better off. Even at making our own trade deals.
Ok cupcake.
https://www.ice.gov/news/releases/former-north-texas-pastor-sentenced-more-24-years-child-exploitation
A baptist preacher in Texas, by ICE, no less.
https://www.justice.gov/usao-wdnc/pr/pastor-sentenced-10-years-possession-and-receipt-child-sexual-abuse-material
Another red state pastor.
https://apnews.com/article/texas-megachurch-pastor-child-sexual-abuse-charges-f3f51666f4201288786f5162f908f2ea
Another Texas pastor.
https://www.wyff4.com/article/greenville-county-pastor-child-sex-crimes-1749603251/65028613
Another red state pastor.
I'll give you your reply right now: "actually you're the bad guy for wanting to protect kids from predators, maaaaan"
https://nypost.com/2025/01/26/us-news/fla-democratic-party-official-arrested-on-child-porn-charges/
https://www.newsweek.com/transgender-democrats-child-porn-charges-draw-conservative-outrage-1814765
https://www.boston.com/news/local-news/2025/04/07/man-facing-child-porn-charges-resigns-from-mass-democratic-state-committee/
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/maryland-mayor-child-pornography-charges-frequent-donor-democrat-senator-tammy-baldwin
https://www.tucsonsentinel.com/local/report/080621_navarrete_arrest/phx-dem-state-senator-arrested-child-sex-crimes/
https://derechadiario.com.ar/us/argentina/perverse-lgbt-activist-was-arrested-for-attempted-pedophilia
It is primarily the Democrats and their activists who are trying to legitimise MAP.
https://src.senate.ca.gov/content/california-democrats-protect-offenders-who-lure-minors
https://nypost.com/2021/11/25/prof-who-referred-to-pedophiles-as-minor-attracted-persons-to-resign/
https://nypost.com/2024/03/03/us-news/kentucky-senator-proposes-child-like-sex-dolls-for-pedophiles-to-find-release/
I pulled from government and news websites.
You have a Republican press release bashing a Romeo and Juliet law. A "diario derecho" (literally: Daily Right - but it's in English) and the NY Post (Murdoch owned rag).
Searching for corroboration of these stories on the AP bulletin leads me here:
https://apnews.com/article/child-marriage-west-virginia-bill-defeated-4d822a23b5ffd70f5370a36cc914cfb0
Pathetic our team has been reduced to begging conservatives to deal with their child predators instead of that being one thing we can all agree on. More pathetic is that we won't force the issue.
Uh huh, you did exactly what you said I would do ;)
"Currently, children can marry as young as 16 in West Virginia with parental consent."
You do realise that 16 is not a very controversial age for marriage? In the UK the law was the same up until 2023. In France its 16 with parental consent, same as WV. Germany changed their law in 2017. Netherlands and Italy allow under 18s to get married with parental consent. Spain only raised the legal age from 14 to 16 10 years ago.
I would not be surprised if you support lowering the voting age to 16.
https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2017/11/23/564049914/why-child-marriage-persists-in-mexico
Is the president of the EU allowed unilateral authority to make agreements like this without getting some other approval? The whole reason Trump is crashing about breaking long time carefully negotiated trade agreements is that he's fraudulently claiming it is all an "emergency" under a law congress passed long ago intended for true emergencies like one of our trading partners starting a war with another.
As Trump demonstrates, it isn't smart for any one person to have the power to mess with tariffs, even if the EU president is more level headed than our orange pedo president.
The article covered this:
Trump and von der Leyen's agreement on the deal doesn't mean it's a sure thing, of course. As a matter that affects the entirety of the EU, each of the 27 member states will get to vote to ratify the trade agreement. That might be a hard sell.
No, she does not have unilateral authority, but she does have enough that she can try to negotiate something and put it before others for approval.
>Is the president of the EU allowed unilateral authority to make agreements like this without getting some other approval?
Nope. European institutions have very little power, compared to federal institutions in the USA. Everything really important needs to get unanimous approval by 27 nations, and every few months one or more of them holds a national election, potentially changing that nation's position. This makes it nearly impossible for "the EU", as a political entity, to adopt a strong stance on anything.
This is also part of why Von der Leyen had a weak bargaining hand, and ended up with this crap. She could not tell Trump "screw you, we'd rather start a trade war than accept a bad deal" (like Xi Jinping did) because at least a few of the 27 would have panicked. Trump knew this. You can't play effectively when the other side knows exactly what cards you have.
There would be ways to fix this, but not in the current political climate. Currently, in most countries, the dominant rhetoric goes in the direction of exacerbating this problem, rather than addressing it. I think the best we can expect from the EU, for the near future, is for it to keep preventing European countries from screwing each other too much. That's a good thing, of course, but that's about it.
Of course, if there was no EU, as some of that rhetoric wishes, then Trump would just have told each individual nation what was going to happen, and that would have been it. Except for a few nations, I doubt there would have even been talks.
OK so if the EU needs to ratify this what happens in the meantime? Trump sets a 15% tariff on imports from the EU, which is better than the EU would have got if they'd told him to pound sand. But the EU can't actually implemented anything SHE promised until it is ratified, right? And according to someone else posting on this, it will need UNANIMOUS approval? They aren't going to get that anytime soon - almost certainly never - so in the meantime nothing changes on the EU side.
Assuming Trump just wanted to "declare victory" for political posturing (and hoping to distract the news from talking about Epstein for a few days) I suppose he won't care that the EU hasn't approved this deal and nothing has changed on their end. He can tell his supporters anything about this and they'll believe it (except for "Epstein is a hoax", apparently) so he can tell them the EU made all these changes even if nothing has changed. But there's always a chance Trump comes back to it and says "if you don't ratify this by date x tariffs will increase to 50%!" and then shit will hit the fan because that still isn't going to get everyone on board.
EU members that don't export much to the US have no reason to agree unless they get something else they want from the EU and the ones with more to lose (i.e. Germany) aren't going to like being blackmailed by fellow EU countries. Sounds like Putin is winning yet again. Funny how that always happens with anything Trump does, isn't it?
OK so if the EU needs to ratify this what happens in the meantime? Trump sets a 15% tariff on imports from the EU, which is better than the EU would have got if they'd told him to pound sand. But the EU can't actually implemented anything SHE promised until it is ratified, right? And according to someone else posting on this, it will need UNANIMOUS approval?
Pretty much. The EU can't invest $600bn in the US, all it can do is hope or try to nudge EU corporations to do that. Or maybe it could persuade the ECB to print 600bn and buy US Treasuries. The EU can't buy $250bn a year US oil & gas either. Ursula can't actually bind any of the EU member states into doing any of the things she promised.. And she should have known this.
Assuming Trump just wanted to "declare victory" for political posturing (and hoping to distract the news from talking about Epstein for a few days) I suppose he won't care that the EU hasn't approved this deal and nothing has changed on their end.
Pretty much. Trump is playing to the peanut gallery. He promised a deal, he made a deal. The US is going to get billions and billions and billions. Then in a couple of months (or weeks), Trump can blame the EU for breaking the deal. Or blame Ursula for breaking a deal she had no power to make in the first place. And then if that breaks the EU, it's all good because then the EU's removed as a competitor. Especially when assorted EUrocrats (and Labour) made the mistake of shilling for Harris. Trump is notoriously thin skinned and vindictive.
Sounds like Putin is winning yet again. Funny how that always happens with anything Trump does, isn't it?
Russia's mostly sitting back and going "We told you so". Plus Medvedev trolling Lindsay Graham because a Senator from S.Carolina seems to be under the impression that he's got a cabinet job representing US foreign policy and can threaten Russia and China.. Not to mention Brazil, India, well, the whole of BRICS. That kind of 'diplomacy' rarely wins friends and influences people, as Ursula and Kaia discovered on their recent trip to China. Oddly, China didn't bow down to their demands and a EU senior visit that was meant to last 3 days ended after 1. China did put on a short bus for Ursula and her team to help them leave China early.
Foreign commerce is under the European Commission resposibility. It's not the President alone, but it's a matter under the Commission powers. Of course EU governements said what they wanted, and there was teh full spectrum - from "give Trump whatever he wants" (Ireland) to "fuckoff Trump" (mostly France and Spain).
Vod der Leyden and other people involved anyway looked unable to play poker with Trumpo. They believed it was a normal international negotiate, it was not. They are apparatchik who can't deal with exceptional circumstances. If your opponents wants a brawl, sometimes you have to give him a brawl - he may discover he's not so strong as he believes.
I hardly think so. From a strategic standpoint, the EU has currently lost NOTHING and gained just about as much time as they care to play for since this has to be voted on by 27 different countries, which will take time and maybe they want to call a referendum to the people for it and that'll take however long it may do. The exact wording etc all have to be dialed in before that or there's nothing for anyone to vote on except perhaps a 'memorandum of understanding' - concepts of a plan if you will.
How many times have numbers been thrown around like this, "THE DEAL IS MADE!" and there is no deal at all.
I'm not so sure. The EU can slow walk any vote to actually approve this "deal" for quite some time, so in the meantime as long as Trump thinks he "won" they got a lower tariff than they would have had if they said no. Maybe he'll get mad down the road that it hasn't been approved, that the promised spending hasn't materialized etc. but they can push him off for quite a while.
While they're pretending to prepare for approval, the courts or the congress may strip him of his ability to wield unilateral tariffs, his term might expire, or his Big Mac clogged heart might expire. If nothing else they're going run down the clock quite a while before Trump would be willing to lose face by admitting the EU took him for a ride and agreed to a deal they knew they wouldn't approve.
This "largest trade deal in history" is great for helping to wean the EU off of "Russian gas and oil" imho (way overdue given rectum Putin's decade+long expansionist totalitarianism and axis of evil).
Also, the "zero-for-zero" tariffs on aircraft, generic drugs and semiconductor equipment (litho?) sounds good to me.
It's bad though that the EU couldn't negotiate something better as that suggests it punched below its weight in these negotiations.
The Trumpian obsession with imposing trade tariffs 5x to 10x larger than before on allies is butt ugly. It does nothing but suggest that the US can't compete on merit alone with even "highly-regulated" "big governments" where workers have strong unions and healthcare and everything ends up (apparently) "more expensive" ... the underlying message appears to be that such things as "right-to-work States" and similar shenanigans, that dissolve workers' rights and further concentrate wealth into the hands of the wealthy, really don't succeed in making America more competitive and so tariffs are the only remaining solution. It's a glaring admission that socialism for the rich is sinking America, imho.
Power to the people! (the real people, not billionaires, their brownshirt DOGE wankers, and chihuahuas!)
"Power to the people! (the real people, not billionaires, their brownshirt DOGE wankers, and chihuahuas!)"
I parsed that as "Power to the people ! The real people and chihuahuas ! "
Chihuahuas ?
"Power to the People" reminded me of the '70s UK TV series Citizen Smith and the "Tooting Popular Front."
Energy deal is a good one and hopefully can get prices down a bit...
Only by Ursula-math. So her deal requires US LNG to be compressed & shipped across the Atlantic to an import terminal.. Somewhere. Then added to the EU's gas pipeline network, shifted around all EU member states and also have enough stored to deal with any winter suprises. This is somehow going to be cheaper than buying gas from Norway, Quatar, and of course Russia. Plus future fun around Ukraine's gas production, Syria, Israel etc.
And then there's EU energy policy that's determined to ban fossil fuels anyway, or just keep loading costs onto them to try and make 'renewables' look more attractive. More on that here-
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2025/07/27/new-offshore-wind-is-now-twice-the-price-of-gas/
But ultimately, at current gas prices, the new strike prices for offshore wind are more than double the cost of a modern CCGT plant.
So it's a very bad deal, especially for countries to the EU's east who'll get much higher gas prices and may lose gas transit fees. Plus if this is supposedly about a new energy security framework, it swaps relying on Russia for relying on the US. And that the Dems won't win the next elections and go from the current "Drill baby drill!" to "Ban baby ban!". Plus the great unanswered question of who blew up NordStream, and why LNG terminals might not also suffer similar 'accidents'.
The reason for the US import tariffs is that the average Trump voter thinks Europeans (or Chinese and so on) have to pay tariffs, so the cost of goods to consumers in the USA will go down. They don’t realise (yet) that they are actually the ones having to pay for the tariffs, and that money will be used to reduce taxes for the richest.
American gas is more expensive than Russian gas. The EU has just committed economic suicide.
>> Putin's decade+long expansionist totalitarianism and axis of evi
Er, that's the USA. Bombing its way around the world, expanding NATO up to Russia's border. The USA is not the good guy here. Germany murdered 20 million Russians in WW2. No wonder Russia looks with a leery eye towards the West.
This is the main reason I think that the EU is doomed, unless it becomes something more like the United States of Europe.
This was sometimes regarded as the end-game for France and Germany when they started moving the EU project away from just being the European Economic Community (aka, the Common Market), and for me, the prospect of a USE (to coin an acronym) was the main reason why I was hesitant to fully commit to the EU. Yes, free movement of people, jobs and goods was a good thing, but I always thought that this would never be the end of the matter.
The EU is in a perilous position. Problems trying to get consensus across 27 states, difficulties between northern and southern countries over finances, the currency (Italy, Greece) and immigration, the general movement towards the political right wing in several countries (including Germany itself), and some countries already having radically different mindsets (Hungary in particular) are putting a strain on the very fabric of the EU.
One of the reasons I feel that David Cameron took the position he did over the Brexit referendum was to try to shock the EU out of the complacency it had fallen into when using the same political model for the EU to try to manage 27 (28?) countries as they did when there were just 6 countries when it was set up. I do not think that the result was what he expected. I think that he expected there to be a sizeable but not majority 'leave' vote, which he could go back and use as a negotiating lever. The result caught him by surprise, which is why he felt he had to step down. With the UK leaving, it opened the door to other countries doing the same, although the punitive trade deals that the EU forced on the UK was intended to try to dissuade other countries thinking about leaving.
Having left, the UK, which was always one of the countries trying to change the EU structures (and often regarded as a thorn in the side by some EU bodies), was no longer a force to change anything EU related, and this is now where we are. IMHO, the EU is rapidly becoming moribund, and although the Russian/Ukrainian situation may stave off a significant change for a while, especially as NATO becomes emasculated by US action, I think that the seams are beginning to come apart. Something will change, but it is not clear whether it will be closer European integration, or it coming apart. I am wondering whether if the US ever fully leaves NATO, whether there will be a move to try to fully align the rest of NATO as an EU body (although the UK and Canada may have something to say about that), to try to bolster the EU's position.
Watch this space.
I have to admit that I'm in two minds about chlorine being used in food preparation. We use it quite extensively as an anti-bacterial wash and sanitiser all over the place (most bleaches used for hygiene purposes are chlorine based), and we must remember that common salt is a chlorine compound.
The chlorinated chicken argument is not really about a chlorine anti-bacterial wash, but more about the animal welfare and food standards used to produce the food. In Europe, it is generally unnecessary to use a chlorine wash for chicken, because of the food standards that we enforce for our food production reduces the chances of serious bacterial presence in the resultant food. But the chlorine wash is there in US chicken to try to achieve the same levels of bacteria after their less rigorous production methods.
So the presence of a chlorine wash in the process is really just an indicator, not the actual problem. We should really complain about the poor standards instead.
Chlorine wash is used in bagged salad and other fragile food goods because it is the only effective way to make the food safe without destroying it in the process.
@Peter Gathercole
"The chlorinated chicken argument is not really about a chlorine anti-bacterial wash, but more about the animal welfare and food standards used to produce the food"
That is what the argument evolved into but some people havnt got the memo yet and still think its about the chlorine wash.
"So the presence of a chlorine wash in the process is really just an indicator, not the actual problem. We should really complain about the poor standards instead."
That depends. Do we care about the process or do we care about safe and edible food?
Many an e.coli outbreak has been traced to raw vegetables. There was a big outbreak in Germany linked to beansprouts and more recently the McD's onion issue in the USA.
Food production standards in the USA are iffy at best. Their meat industry is dominated by a couple of HUGE megacorps and the authorities are quite light touch and allow a lot of self certification.
@ChodeMonkey
"Madam, are you unable to use The Google? Perhaps you could try this newfangled ChatGPT to do your own research. Come back and tell us all what you find."
it was your claim. Do you not know? Did you make it up? Didnt you google or did you ask ChatGPT to write your comments for you? Come back when you know who said what you claimed was said.
You poor creature. Next you'll be telling yourself there was no horde of Turks ready to invade if we did not leave the European Union! Gadzooks!
At least now, after Brexit, we are all wealthier and have a relatively lower cost of living. (Well, we do up here. Not so much those further down the order, but they can have our trickle down, what?)
@ChodeMonkey
You claimed someone made some promise. Merely asking you who you claim made the promise you have so far-
> Told me not to be coquettish
> Told me you are not scared to say
> Told me you feel antagonised
> Told me to ask ChatGPT
> And tried to change the subject completely
But at no point have you managed to give the name of who said what you claim they said. While it is fun watching you squirm it is perfectly fine for you to tell me you made it up, misremembered or just pulled it from ChatGPT. You are a troll, I dont think anyone expects too much from you.
Turning your back on the much vaunted and promised "first in line" UK/USA free trade deal?
I cannot believe that you are turning anti-brexit at this late stage, Madam. For shame!
One should dry one's eyes and compose oneself.
Perhaps a small glass of sherry might be in order? (For medicinal calming of your nerves.)
Now then, any luck with "The Google"? (Hint: "first in line". )
@ChodeMonkey
"Turning your back on the much vaunted and promised"
Again you seem to be struggling with a simple missing piece from your comment. Let me refresh your memory-
"This is the massive UK-US free trade deal we were promised after Brexit?"
Who promised?
That is my comment 21 hours ago and many replies to your avoidance. Care to answer?
Some of us work for a living, so no time to be copy/pasting URLs so as to spoon-feed you, Madam.
Are you now against free trade? Are you some kind of Communist now?! How can you be against growing the wealth of the elite and letting it trickle down on the rest of the populous?!
Google it. It's all there: Conservative Manifestos (2019), policy documents and interviews with the usual rogues gallery from the usual organisations.
@ChodeMonkey
"Some of us work for a living d, so no time to be copy/pasting URLs so as to spoon-feed you, Madam."
I get that but its you so I doubt that is a problem. But for all your comments in reply you still manage to make a claim that someone promised something... but you dont seem to have a clue who said it. All I asked you for was the name of who said it and you cannot provide it, now saying you are too busy to find URL's to substantiate your claim. I am guessing because you would need a URL to remind you who said what.
So, still no name?
@ChodeMonkey
"Oh don't be coy. It does not suit you. You know which influencers. Otherwise why would you keep spouting their conspiracy talking points?"
What I am saying comes from the US government from Tulsi Gabbard. So again what influencers are you talking about? Are you going to pretend this is some kind of conspiracy and do you have any clue what you are talking about?
I think you should lay off the chatGPT
@ChodeMonkey
"You've forgotten what you read, watch and/or listen to?"
I told you exactly where I got the information from. The actual source Tulsi Gabbard who announced these issues and has legally reported Obama's crew for criminal investigation. So again who are these so called influencers you speak of? Do you not know what you are talking about again?
@ChodeMonkey
"Here, I'll throw you a bone."
You really didnt. Who are these so called influencers you are claiming I get my information from? It is the same problematic question of who do you claim made the promise of a US-UK free trade deal? You seem incapable of answering.
But since you proved you do have time to find urls maybe you could manage to put names to your claims? Still no?
Now the EU feels how the UK felt after Brexit, when so called partners and friends back stabbed us, because we wouldn't bend over and be slaves to an unelected bunch of faceless unaccountable bureaucrats, sadly we got 2TK Starmer selling us out to the USA, EU, France and China, <countries please queue here to screw over the UK>
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