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The European Union is revising its proposals for a potential trade deal with the US as the two sides move to accelerate serious negotiations, even though the Trump administration continues to provide little clarity and make demands that negotiators see as unrealistic, according to people familiar with the matter.
The new EU proposal would provide more details on ways to lower trade and non-tariff barriers, as well as boost European investments within the US and purchases of US goods, including liquefied natural gas and semiconductors for use in artificial intelligence, said the people, who asked for anonymity to discuss sensitive talks.
Despite the slow progress in direct talks, European trade ministers said the EU and US are both moving to speed up the pace of negotiations after the US reached temporary trade truces with the UK and China.
Maros Sefcovic, the EU commissioner for trade and economic security, said he spoke by phone with US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick on Wednesday, with further meetings between the two planned.
“We had a good phone conversation — one of many,” Sefcovic said at a press conference in Brussels, following a meeting of EU trade ministers. “We agreed that we would accelerate our work.”
EU officials said the Trump administration’s willingness to strike a deal with the UK and significantly pull down its tariffs on China temporarily are a positive sign, though they emphasized they’re prepared to move forward with retaliatory levies against the US if talks fail.
The recent deal with the UK, however, leaves in a place a new baseline tariff of 10% and potentially sectoral duties, which may not be acceptable for many EU nations.
The Swedish minister for development cooperation and foreign trade, Benjamin Dousa, said that “if the UK-US deal is what Europe gets then the US can expect countermeasures from our side,” he said. “We will not be happy with that kind of deal.”
The US has welcomed some of the options proposed by the bloc as part of a potential deal, but EU officials remain unclear about what exactly US President Donald Trump is looking for, according to people familiar with the matter. One potential stumbling block is Trump’s charge that the EU’s value-added tax is a non-tariff barrier, since EU officials are adamant that it isn’t and that the bloc’s autonomy over tax and regulations isn’t negotiable.