Us-eu Trade Deal “delivers Nothing” For European Agriculture, Farmers Say

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen (left) shakes hands pinch US President Donald Trump (right) successful Turnberry successful Scotland connected 27 July 2025 aft agreeing connected a waste and acquisition deal. Credit: Brendan Smialowski / AFP

Europe’s agriculture assemblage “gets nothing” from nan outline woody connected waste and acquisition betwixt nan EU and nan US, nan bloc’s farmers person argued.

A “framework agreement” released yesterday (21 August) by Washington and Brussels said nan US would levy a 15% connected EU goods.

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The US has “committed” to spot a little “most favoured nation” tariff connected a constricted group of products, including craft parts and generic pharmaceuticals, from nan commencement of September.

Meanwhile, nan EU said it “intends” to supply “preferential marketplace entree for a wide scope of US seafood and cultivation goods”. The products see dairy products, consequence and vegetables, “processed foods” and pork.

EU farming lobby group Copa-Cogeca deed retired astatine what it said was a “one-sided” agreement.

“This woody grants improved marketplace entree for US agri-food products, while EU producers are near facing higher tariffs, now rising to 15%, connected cardinal export products,” Copa-Cogeca said successful a statement. “This one-sided result is not only unjustified. It is profoundly damaging to a assemblage already nether unit from rising costs, regulatory constraints, and expanding world competition. In applicable terms, EU agriculture is being asked to judge weaker trading terms, while nan US reaps caller advantages.”

The EU’s reduced tariffs connected US foods will beryllium implemented done product-specific “tariff complaint quotas”, aliases TRQs, which Brussels said will beryllium published “in owed course”.

The EU argues nan outline waste and acquisition woody gives its exporters certainty and predictability erstwhile shipping to nan US. In a statement, nan European Commission said: “High-quality and accepted EU nutrient and portion products, are successful precocious demand, and this woody gives EU exporters nan stableness they request to proceed exporting.”

Beef, poultry and rice, Brussels noted, are excluded from nan agreement.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen added: “Faced pinch a challenging situation, we person delivered for our personnel states and manufacture and restored clarity and coherence to transatlantic trade. This is not nan extremity of nan process, we proceed to prosecute pinch nan US to work together much tariff reductions, to place much areas of cooperation, and to create much economical maturation potential.”

Nonetheless, Copa-Cogeca said nan statement was “a strategical correction that undermines nan EU’s ain farmers, agri-cooperatives and agrarian economies”.

It added: “Competitor countries, specified arsenic for illustration Australia and Argentina, will proceed to use from little 10% tariffs, meaning EU producers are now astatine an moreover greater disadvantage successful a cardinal market.

“This statement confirms a worrying trend: agriculture is being consistently deprioritised successful EU waste and acquisition negotiations.”