The European Parliament approved legislation on Tuesday to implement the EU’s trade deal with the United States, voting 440 in favor, 151 against and 50 abstaining on a package that removes tariffs on U.S. industrial goods and some agricultural products. The vote advances a deal struck last July at President Donald Trump’s golf resort in Turnberry, Scotland, where the terms were hammered out between institutions and power brokers while ordinary people were left to live with the consequences.
Who Gets to Set the Terms
The legislation fulfills the EU’s side of the agreement, after Washington had already agreed to cap tariffs on most EU exports at 15 percent and lower levies on European cars. Those changes took effect last fall. In other words, the machinery of trade policy has been moving on schedule for the benefit of states and exporters, while the public is expected to absorb the fallout as if this were all just neutral administration.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen welcomed the vote result, writing, “A deal is a deal — and the EU is delivering its part.” That line captures the whole ritual: the language of obligation, the choreography of compliance, and the insistence that the institutions must honor bargains made at the top, no matter who pays below.
Getting the deal onto the EU’s books took longer after top trade lawmaker Bernd Lange demanded additional safeguards following Trump’s threats in January to annex Greenland and later to impose a trade embargo on Spain for opposing U.S. air strikes on Iran. The delay exposed how quickly trade arrangements can be shaken by threats from above, with entire populations and economies treated as leverage in disputes among rulers.
The Price of Their Bargains
Under a hard-fought compromise reached last month, Parliament can ask the Commission to suspend the deal if Washington fails to lower duties on steel and aluminum products by the end of 2026. The EU’s tariff concessions will also expire at the end of 2029. Even the supposed safeguard is framed inside the same hierarchy: Parliament may ask, the Commission may act, and the rest are left to wait for the institutions to decide whether the arrangement still serves their interests.
The delay tested Washington’s patience, and in early May Trump threatened to hike tariffs again if the EU institutions did not reach a deal by July 4. That threat made plain how trade policy functions as a pressure system, with tariffs and counter-tariffs used as instruments of coercion while officials present the outcome as orderly governance.
Rubber-Stamp Politics, Same Old Machinery
The Council of the EU is now expected to rubber-stamp the texts on June 26 before they are officially published in the EU’s Official Journal and enter into force. The language is almost too honest: rubber-stamp, publish, enter into force. The process moves forward through institutional approval, not public control, and the people affected by the deal remain spectators to a decision made in their name.
The vote itself showed the scale of the consensus inside the parliamentary chamber: 440 in favor, 151 against and 50 abstaining. That tally does not change the basic arrangement. The EU is removing tariffs on U.S. industrial goods and some agricultural products, Washington has already secured its preferred tariff cap on most EU exports, and the institutions are preparing to formalize the arrangement as if this were simply the natural order of things.
The deal’s timeline is already built in. The tariff concessions will expire at the end of 2029, and the Commission may be asked to suspend the deal if steel and aluminum duties are not lowered by the end of 2026. For now, the apparatus is moving ahead, with the Council expected to approve the texts on June 26 and the Official Journal waiting to make it all official.