The pact signed in Scotland is not sheltered from turbulence. The winds from overseas return to spy on Europe, driven once again by Donald Trump, who shakes the spectrum of duties at 35% if the continent will not keep faith with 600 billion of promised investments.
“They guaranteed us to do what we want. It is the only reason why I lowered the rates to 15%,” he warned the Tycoon, making the respite jumping and rekindling the tension also on microchips and on the drugs recipients closely – “already next week” – of a rate of up to 250%. Brussels, officially, does not break down: the 15% roof continues to be the shield presented by the EU Commission as a “insurance policy” valid for all sectors, including medicinal and semiconductors. But that threshold is also the red line traced by President Ursula von der Leyen and if Washington should force the margins, it is the warning, the EU “has the means to react”. Countermeasures that are now officially frozen for six months with a decision that must be formalized by 27 within two weeks. After days on the optovolating between divergent interpretations and continuous exchanges, the first joint text between Brussels and Washington is now “in advanced”, on the US negotiators table Howard Lutnick and Jamieson Greer, with which Commissioner Maros Sefcovic maintains a “constructive” channel. Although it remains to be clarified who will be, within the Trump administration, to put the stamp on the agreed points. The investment chapter – for a total, including energy, of well over a thousand billion euros – is incandescent, with the EU executive aware of not being able to guarantee commitments that remain, by their nature, in the hands of the private sector. Although devoid of binding value and still without an official date, the EU-USA declaration will still define the first mobile borders of the new transatlantic map, also tracing the perimeter of the initial exemptions on the threshold of 15%. Among the first to glimpse lightening, the automotive will be the automotive: to concretize the Tycoon commitment to reduce duties from 27.5 to 15%, a new executive order will be needed – distinct from the one signed on July 31st in force from 7 August – to which the EU still looks at confidence, certain of a turning point incoming “very soon”.
Brussels then reiterates “determined to fight on each individual product” deemed strategic, sector by sector, to snatch zero duties or at least the treatment of the most favored nation, equal to 4.8%. The planes and their components will be the first to benefit from it and will already find their place in the joint text. For everything else – from wine to liqueurs, to medical devices and chemicals – you will need patience in a negotiation that will take “probably months” to define the final agreement. A game in which Italy intends to assert its priorities, starting from the agri -food.
“We do not pretend to have closed all the games, but we built a solid base. It was necessary to put on a position of relative strength and stability”, has returned to highlight a high EU official by defending an agreement seen as “the best possible in current conditions”. No “celebrations” but “relief” strengthened by the gaze turned beyond the European borders where, punctualizes, “there are those who are worse”. As in the case of Switzerland, which sent President and Furia President and Minister of Economy to Washington to avoid the dark shock of 39% and already fears new repercussions on Big Pharma. Or in that of India, in the sights for its energy ambiguity with Moscow and risk of a punishment of more than 25%. But even the internal tensions are not smoothly. Brussels ensures that the negotiating process constantly involved the 27, underlining that the escalation was supported only by a small minority. Still, the criticisms of German Minister Lars Klingbeil, pronounced by the United States, affected the executive of Ursula von der Leyen. Even Berlin, it was the dry reply, supported the negotiating road, the only view as able to “guarantee stability and defend the common European interest”.