Climate activists call EU-US trade deal “disastrous signal for climate action”
The tariff and trade agreement between the EU and the US is a “disastrous signal for climate action,” said Sascha Müller-Kraenner, managing director of NGO Environmental Action Germany. The agreement would massively increase EU imports of US fossil fuels. “Such a ‘deal’ not only sets the EU back in terms of climate policy, but also deepens its dependence on a US president who uses energy supplies as a means of geopolitical pressure,” he said.
German lawmaker Nina Scheer, energy policy spokesperson of the parliamentary group of the governing Social Democrats (SPD), emphasised that such an agreement at the EU level could not force a member state to buy or consume more fossil fuels, especially if this contradicted the country’s energy and climate policy. “Under EU law, the energy mix is purely a matter for the member states,” she said.
In a long-awaited breakthrough after months-long negotiations, the US and the EU announced a trade and tariffs deal on 27 July which includes a 15 percent import tariff on most EU goods into the United States, such as cars, semiconductors and pharmaceuticals. Tariffs on European steel and aluminium will stay at 50 percent, but European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said these would later be cut and replaced by a quota system, reported Reuters. The EU pledged to make 750 billion US dollars in strategic purchases, covering oil, gas, nuclear, fuel and chips during president Donald Trump's term in office. Von der Leyen said that the EU would “replace Russian gas and oil with significant purchases of US LNG, oil and nuclear fuels.”
The EU commitment to purchase fossil fuels worth hundreds of billions of euros from the USA is “bad news,” said Greenpeace’s Mira Jäger. “Climate destruction must not be a bargaining chip in trade disputes,” she said, adding that such far-reaching deals required democratic participation and must not be agreed behind closed doors.
German chancellor Friedrich Merz welcomed the agreement and highlighted that it had averted a trade conflict “which would have hit the export-oriented German economy hard.” Economy minister Katherina Reiche said the agreement would prove “challenging” for Germany’s economy, but provide certainty.
Industry association BDI criticised the agreement. “Even a 15-percent tariff rate will have immense negative effects on export-oriented German industry,” said Wolfgang Niedermark, a member of the federation’s leadership.
Economists warned that the deal put the rules-based world trade at risk. “The EU is trying to avert a trade war in the short term, but will pay a high price for this in the long term,” said Julian Hinz of the Kiel Institute for the World Economy. Under WTO rules, member states had to apply the same customs duties to all other members – a rule which the deal and other agreements by the US undercut.
