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Donald Trump has given the EU until early July to implement its trade deal with the US, as he also offered a reprieve from steep car tariffs threatened last week, according to people familiar with the matter.
The US president said in a post on Truth Social on Thursday that he would hit the EU with “much higher” tariffs if it did not put in place its side of the agreement struck last summer before July 4.
Trump wrote that he had spoken with European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen by phone on Thursday morning.
“A promise was made that the EU would deliver their side of the Deal and, as per Agreement, cut their Tariffs to ZERO!” he wrote. “I agreed to give her until our Country’s 250th Birthday or, unfortunately, their Tariffs would immediately jump to much higher levels.”
Trump’s latest tariff threats follow months of complaints from US officials over the slow pace of the bloc implementing the deal struck in Turnberry.
As part of the agreement, the US would reduce Trump’s steep “liberation day” levies to 15 per cent on most goods imported to the US from the bloc. In exchange, the EU agreed to slash its own levies on American industrial goods and some agricultural products to zero.
EU lawmakers approved the trade deal earlier this year, although it was delayed because of anger over Trump’s campaign to acquire the Danish territory of Greenland.
However, MEPs set conditions, including an agreement to reverse the decision if Trump imposed new levies.
Von der Leyen said on X that she and Trump “discussed the EU — US trade deal”.
“We remain fully committed, on both sides, to its implementation,” she wrote. “Good progress is being made towards tariff reduction by early July.”
She added that they also discussed “the situation in the Middle East” and agreed “that Iran must never [possess] a nuclear weapon”.
Although the Supreme Court earlier this year ruled Trump could not use emergency powers to impose immediate levies on trading partners, his administration is working on several probes that could allow the president to hit nations with new levies.
Trump can still impose higher duties on cars, as those tariffs were issued under a different legal authority and were not affected by the Supreme Court ruling in February.
He is also able to increase tariffs on sectors including pharmaceuticals and semiconductors, which were set at 15 per cent under the terms of the trade agreement.
