Brussels — Europe has long styled itself as the last champion of global rules-based trade. But the new deal struck with the United States under US President Donald Trump has left Brussels visibly shaken, exposing the limits of its principles when confronted with hard economic pressure.
The agreement, hailed by Washington as a victory for “fair reciprocity,” fixes a 15 percent baseline tariff on most European goods entering the US market. European cars will face reduced tariffs, pharmaceuticals and semiconductors will see caps rather than steep hikes, and the EU’s aircraft exports will be fully exempt. On paper, European negotiators can claim they avoided the worst outcome of a looming trade war. Trump tariffs trigger $12 billion auto industry collapse
Yet within the EU’s corridors of power, the deal is seen less as a triumph and more as a bitter necessity. The concessions mark a stark departure from the bloc’s self-proclaimed role as guardian of multilateral trade norms. Critics argue the EU has traded away decades of credibility at the World Trade Organization for the temporary comfort of tariff stability.
Pascal Lamy, the former WTO director-general, has warned that the deal undermines Europe’s credibility, declaring that the EU now looks like “a rules-based power when convenient, and a transactional one when pressured.” The blunt assessment resonates with many in Brussels, who admit privately that the bloc’s dependence on US military protection, especially amid the war in Ukraine, left them cornered in trade talks.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has already called for Europe to rethink its reliance on the US, urging a search for alternative trade partners in Asia, Latin America, and Africa. His remarks reflect growing unease within Europe’s political class that the bloc is sliding into dependency on an increasingly unpredictable partner across the Atlantic.
The broader consequence extends far beyond tariffs. By forcing Europe into a bilateral framework, Trump has struck at the heart of the EU’s strategy, which for decades has relied on multilateral rules, global arbitration, and carefully constructed regulatory power. Analysts warn that the shift accelerates a wider unraveling of the global trade order, steering it toward a patchwork of deals designed on American terms.
For many in Europe, the unease was captured in the tense face of EU trade chief Sabine Weyand, who reportedly admitted that Brussels had secured “the best it could get.” The words rang hollow for those who had hoped Europe would hold firm on principle.
“It is going to be very difficult for the EU to say, ‘We are defending the multilateral trading system,’ because they are one of many members that decided to negotiate a bilateral deal with the United States,” said Marco Molina, a trade lawyer and a former senior diplomat who led talks on reforming the WTO’s dispute settlement body until 2024.
According to Politico, the joint statement accompanying the deal underscored its transactional nature, stressing that Europe was forced to negotiate bilaterally rather than through the multilateral World Trade Organization framework it has historically defended. European officials admitted privately that the WTO’s role in safeguarding rules-based trade had been further diminished, a blow to the EU’s longstanding reputation as a champion of international order.
Reuters reported that the agreement set a 15 percent tariff baseline to avoid a full-scale trade war, but this came at the price of heavy commitments. The EU pledged to significantly increase purchases of American liquefied natural gas and oil, a move that locks Europe into long-term dependency on US energy supplies. In addition, Brussels agreed to stimulate investment flows worth more than $600 billion, reflecting the scale of the leverage Washington used to secure the deal.
The Washington Post highlighted that concessions extended far beyond energy and tariffs. European negotiators had to accept binding conditions on pharmaceuticals and semiconductors, two sectors critical to the continent’s industrial future. Washington ensured that European access to the US market in these industries was tightly capped, while American producers gained expanded openings in agriculture and high-tech sectors. Analysts said the scope of the agreement revealed how Trump’s White House used trade policy not merely as a defensive tool but as an aggressive instrument to restructure transatlantic economic relations in its favor.
