• Hugo Dixon: It’s a bad day for Europe and a good day for Trump
• Dermot Hodson: No winners as EU faces costly 15% tariffs and higher US prices
• Anand Menon: EU-US deal risks higher costs and minimal gains
• Omar Kaykhusraw: EU buys temporary relief but loses leverage in tough us trade deal

A crisp Scottish breeze swept across the manicured fairways of Donald Trump’s Turnberry golf resort as the US president and European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen sat down for a pivotal 40-minute meeting. It was not without a certain poetic absurdity that the European Union’s highest officials found themselves boarding flights to Britain for a deal with the US.

Against the backdrop of rolling green hills and the distant roar of the Atlantic, the two leaders announced a deal to end four months of fraught negotiations, imposing a 15% import tariff on most EU goods – half the level originally threatened – and steering clear of a potentially damaging transatlantic trade war.

Following their discussions, von der Leyen declared, “we have a deal,” calling it “a big deal, a huge deal” that would bring much-needed stability and predictability to the world’s two largest economies.

For Ursula von der Leyen at last, was a victory she could call her own.

Trump described the agreement, which includes a commitment from the EU to boost purchases of US energy products, as “a powerful deal” and an “important” partnership.

But just how much of a success it truly was remains an open question.

Dermot Hodson, professor of political economy at Loughborough University London and author of Circle of Stars: A History of the EU and the People Who Made It, spoke exclusively to VIMA about the winners from this deal: “I don’t see many winners from this provisional trade deal. The EU has avoided the worse-case scenario of 30% tariffs from 1 August but ended up with a very costly 15% baseline tariff. Americans will now pay higher prices for myriad European products.

“The French Prime Minister is right to be worried, but the EU has seen a remarkable resilience in the face of far worse crises. There is already plenty of soul searching in Brussels about whether and how the negotiations could have been approached differently. Given how often the US president changes his mind, the European Commission might get to implement these lessons sooner rather than later.”

Omar Kaykhusraw, Research Fellow at King’s College London said: “The trade deal looks like a bit of a relief on the surface – the EU has avoided a full-blown trade war, tariffs seem to now be capped at 15% (less than what markets feared), and some key industries like aerospace and certain resources have been spared. But scratch the surface, and it starts to look like the EU gave up a lot to avoid a showdown. In return for fewer tariffs, Ursula von de Leyen has agreed to massive purchases of U.S. energy and a great deal in investments, which feels like the EU is meeting demands than striking a fair bargain. The U.S. still holds the power to raise tariffs again if Europe doesn’t follow through, which puts Brussels in an awkward position. This is a dynamic situation and very much in line with the new strategy of the Republicans. Either way, the deal sets an unfortunate tone: the U.S. gets to play hardball, and Europe must scramble to keep the relationship intact. It solves the short-term crisis, but it also leaves the EU looking more dependent and less like a co-equal partner.

“I think Europe has long suffered from dark days since the Financial Crisis of 2008, so to say that this trade agreement is a dark day for the EU is perhaps true but hyperbole. We must remember that there are still big question marks on the EU project and whilst it is true that this trade agreement does not cast a good light on its present and future, there are other systemic issues that overshadow a tariff rate with the United States.

“Friedrich Merz’s warning that the US-EU trade agreement could cause damage to the EU economy is not without merit-and in many ways, it’s a reasonable assessment. Whilst the deal avoids the worst-case scenario of tariffs and offers some temporary relief for exporters, it comes at a high structural cost for Europe. The EU has agreed to massive purchases of U.S. energy and investment flows-essentially redirecting capital and strategic alignment toward American industries directly without securing comparable advantages in return. The 15% tariff baseline, although better than what was initially threatened, is still significantly higher than historical levels and will weigh heavily on export-heavy sectors like German automotive and industrial goods. Moreover, the deal ties the EU’s hands. The U.S. retains the right to raise tariffs again if the EU fails to meet its investment or purchase pledges, creating a dynamic of conditionality that weakens Europe’s bargaining position. The lack of detail and transparency in the agreement may even add to the uncertainty that von der Leyen wished to resolve – especially for those industries where tariff commitments are still unclear. So while some individual sectors may benefit, the broader economic balance is skewed. The EU may have bought stability, but at what cost!?”

British journalist and commentator Hugo Dixon said exclusively to VIMA: “It’s a big deal.Whether it brings stability, I’m not sure because Donald Trump is completely capable of changing his mind and saying, actually, he didn’t agree to that or he wants more and so on. Also, at least two parts of the deal are very flimsy. I mean, they’re more than two parts, but two particular parts are very uncertain.

One is the $600 billion investment by European companies in America. Exactly what does that mean? What happens if it doesn’t actually occur? Will Donald Trump think that Europe has failed to keep its side of the bargain? How could Europe manage to engineer such a massive investment in America? The second is the purchase of $750 billion of fossil fuels. Again, apparently over three years from America, this is a ridiculous number. It’s not possible. The EU couldn’t buy so much oil and gas and coal from America in that period. And even if it was prepared to buy it, America couldn’t supply it. And then what will Trump do? What can I say? I think it’s a deal, but whether it sticks is another matter.

“There still is a lot of uncertainty about where do pharmaceuticals fit into it, also some other sectors.

“And this is a very – and the views from the Americans and the European side are slightly different on how to interpret this. And this is, of course, only a framework deal. It’s not what one would call a proper trade deal.

“But none of Trump’s deals are proper trade deals. They’re very flimsy. And so that means that a lot could be up for future interpretation. That said, I think there is a little bit more stability than there was. And the headline – there are three big headlines. One is that tariffs will be 15 percent. That’s a lot more than they were before. But it’s on the same lines as what Japan is facing. It’s a bit more than the UK is going to face.

So the EU is not in a particularly bad competitive position, when you put it compared to other exporters to America. And then the two other big headlines are these things that we’ve discussed, the massive investment in America of $600 billion and the purchase of $750 billion of oil and gas. Now, it makes sense for European countries to invest in America.

And it makes sense for the European Union to buy more oil and gas from America as they touch the final oil and gas that they’re buying from Russia. But these numbers are just much too high. And it looks a bit like Europe is paying tribute to Donald Trump.

And I completely understand the French position, which is that this is a form of submission to American bullying. But what I want to say is that – and this is the thing I really wanted to give you – is that my view is that there are really two views about this deal. There are those who say it’s terrible, we should never have done it.

And what we should have done in Europe is that we should have stood up to Donald Trump. And if he hit us, we should have hit back even harder. And then there’s the other view, which says that we’re not strong enough to hit back harder against America.

Not only does he have more economic might than we do, he has all sorts of other things that he can do. For example, he could threaten to remove America’s security guarantee to Europe at a very critical time when we have Russia’s invasion in Ukraine. And so those are the two different points of view.

My view is that there was a third alternative which the EU didn’t properly explore. And that was just to say, no, we are not going to do a deal, but we’re not going to retaliate either. And you have to remember that these tariffs, they don’t just hurt European exporters.

They hurt American consumers. And I think that that would have been a sort of play it long strategy where Europe didn’t say yes to a bad deal. It is a bad deal, but didn’t retaliate and antagonise Trump, but played it long, complained to the World Trade Organisation.

That would have taken nine months. And see how things are in nine months or a year, because I think Donald Trump will be quite a lot weaker in six, nine or 12 months time. And if that’s the case, then Europe would have been in a better position to push its case and possibly even retaliate at that point in time.

But anyway, what they’ve decided to do is to do this deal. It’s a bad deal. I understand why they didn’t want to retaliate.

“It’s not a success for Europe. It’s a bad deal for Europe. It is a success for Donald Trump, I’m sorry to say, because I don’t want Donald Trump to have successes. But he’s shown that with his bully boy tactics, he’s been able to get quite a lot of what he wants.

Now, of course, he hasn’t really opened up the European market. He hasn’t, you know, got rid of VAT or changed the EU’s regulations or whatever. But he has got the EU to basically pay tribute to America.

And I think that that is a success for him. And he will feel vindicated that his tough tactics are working. I think that from Europe’s position, it was a missed opportunity.

There was a third option, and they thought they only had two options, one of which was to agree a bad deal, and the other of which was to retaliate. They actually had a third option, which was just to say no and play it long. And that was a missed opportunity.

It’s a bad day for Europe and a good day for Trump.”

Professor of European Politics and Foreign Affairs at King’s College London Anand Menon, said: “Well, it isn’t really a deal because so much of it is left up in the air. It’s quite performative trade policy in the sense that very few of the so-called commitments the EU has made are really commitments. So basically, the bottom line is you have a ramping up of tariffs, which would be bad for US consumers, bad for EU exporters, with very little else there.”

“I think the danger with all this for the United States is increased costs for US consumers. It keeps the cost of living high. It increases inflation. So it depends what Donald Trump is trying to do. If he’s trying to flex his muscle, then this looks like a success short term. But for the well-being of the US economy overall, then it’s not really a success in any real sense.”

Some say that this deal may benefit the UK economy, with Menon saying: “I don’t think it’s going to make a huge amount of difference, but it is certainly conceivable. I mean, the one area, I suppose, where that could be a real issue is in Northern Ireland because, of course, companies could, and when it comes to investment decisions, if you’re a company that trades heavily with the United States from Northern Ireland, then it is conceivable that you might start thinking about basing yourself in Northern Ireland to avoid the higher tariffs.”

Regarding the reactions on the deal from France and Germany, Anand Menon said: “Different member states have got different attitudes because they have different sorts of relations with the United States and different sort of trade relations.

“It is very common for member states to try and have their cake and eat it in the sense that it is perfectly conceivable that some member states, whilst accepting the need for the European Union to negotiate this deal, also want to get the political capital for criticising it in public.”