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The European Union has announced it will halt the ratification of its trade agreement with the United States following the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down key elements of President Trump’s tariff policy.
Some shit you should know before you dig in: Last week, the United States Supreme Court ruled 6–3 that President Trump had overstepped his authority under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) by using it to impose sweeping global tariffs on nearly every country. The Court found that the 1970s law, which allows the president to regulate imports in response to an “unusual and extraordinary” national emergency, did not grant him the broad power to unilaterally reset tariff rates on such a wide scale. As a result, most of the tariffs implemented under that authority were struck down, and collection of those duties was ordered to stop. In response, Trump announced he would impose a new global tariff, initially set at 10% and then raised to 15%, using a different legal authority, and warned that any country attempting to exploit the ruling could face even higher tariffs.
What’s going on now: In a notable development, European Union lawmakers have paused the process of formally approving their trade deal with the United States, saying they need clarity before moving forward. The EU says the problem isn’t just the Supreme Court ruling itself, but what President Trump did afterward, quickly replacing the struck-down tariffs with a new 15% global tariff under a different legal authority. European officials argue that this creates confusion about whether the original US-EU agreement still applies as negotiated or whether European goods could now face higher or stacked tariffs.
The trade deal, reached last July between President Trump and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, capped most US tariffs on EU goods at 15%. It also eliminated tariffs entirely on certain products like aircraft parts, some pharmaceuticals, semiconductor equipment, and specific raw materials. In exchange, the EU agreed to increase purchases of US energy and ease some trade barriers. While many European lawmakers felt the deal favored the US, they accepted it to avoid a full-blown trade war and bring stability to transatlantic trade.
In a statement, Olof Gill, an EU Commission spokesman, said “Full clarity on what these new developments mean for the EU-US trade relationship is the absolute minimum that is required for us as the EU to make a clear-eyed assessment to decide on the next steps. We are very clear what needs to happen here. The US needs to tell us precisely what is going on.”
As of now, there has been no comment from the United States.
