A trade deal between the United States and the European Union has been put on hold after the European Parliament decided to freeze a ratification vote over US President Donald Trump’s mounting threats to seize Greenland, a Danish territory. The trade committee was reportedly due to set its position in votes on January 26-27 in Parliament; however, this has been postponed.
Trump’s ambition to take over Greenland has put the two long-standing allies, the US and the EU, at a standoff, as the US President’s repeated threats being met with equally strong reactions from the 27-member bloc.
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US-EU trade deal on hold
The agreement has been caught up in a growing dispute between the EU and the US over Greenland. Trump earlier threatened to impose tariffs on several European countries unless he is allowed to buy the island.
It is worth noting that the US leader on Wednesday scrapped the tariffs he had threatened to impose on eight European nations over Greenland after saying he had agreed with the head of NATO on a “framework of a future deal” on Arctic security.
The tariff warning issued by Trump over the weekend led EU lawmakers to rethink a planned vote on ratifying the US trade deal agreed with Washington last July. Under the agreement, most EU goods would face a 15 per cent tariff, while the EU agreed to remove all tariffs on American industrial products and some agricultural items.
{{/usCountry}}The tariff warning issued by Trump over the weekend led EU lawmakers to rethink a planned vote on ratifying the US trade deal agreed with Washington last July. Under the agreement, most EU goods would face a 15 per cent tariff, while the EU agreed to remove all tariffs on American industrial products and some agricultural items.
{{/usCountry}}Parts of the deal were already implemented, but it still requires Parliament’s approval to become final.
What Parliament’s trade committee said
In a statement, Bernd Lange, chair of Parliament’s trade committee, said, “By threatening the territorial integrity and sovereignty of an EU member state and by using tariffs as a coercive instrument, the US is undermining the stability and predictability of EU-US trade relations.”
“We have been left with no alternative but to suspend work” on the trade deal, “until the US decides to reengage on a path of cooperation rather than confrontation,” Lange was quoted as saying by Bloomberg.
Manfred Weber, who leads Parliament’s largest bloc, the centre-right European People’s Party, said on Wednesday that “for us as EPP, and I think for all parliamentarians, it’s clear there will be no ratification, no zero percentage tariff access to the EU for US products until we have clarified the question of reliability.”
In a warning to Trump, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, the EU’s top executive, told EU lawmakers earlier, “Europe prefers dialogue and solutions, but we are fully prepared to act, if necessary, with unity, urgency and determination.”
Several European lawmakers also argued that the trade deal is uneven, as the EU would have to remove most import duties while the US keeps a broad 15 per cent rate. Even so, they had earlier seemed prepared to accept it, though with conditions such as an 18-month sunset clause and steps to deal with any sharp rise in US imports.
With inputs from agencies