The European Parliament has signed off on the EU's most consequential trade deal in years. On 16 June in Strasbourg, MEPs voted 440 to 151, with 50 abstentions, to ratify the agreement that Donald Trump and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen sealed at Turnberry, Scotland, last July.
The vote clears one of the last hurdles for a pact that has been delayed and amended repeatedly since the summer. EU member states are expected to give final sign-off on 26 June — comfortably ahead of Trump's latest 4 July deadline.
The terms are lopsided, and Brussels knows it. The EU agreed to erase its levies on most US industrial goods and some agricultural products. In return, European exporters face a 15% tariff ceiling on goods sold into the United States. Trade Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič welcomed the vote as a milestone that showed the bloc "delivering on its word."
Lawmakers did extract one safeguard. They secured a provision letting the Commission suspend the agreement — at the request of either the Parliament or a single member state — if Washington fails to lift its tariffs on European steel and aluminium by the end of 2026. The treatment of steel and aluminium derivative products remains unresolved.
The vote went ahead despite a last-minute provocation. On the eve of the G7 summit in Evian, Trump threatened to slap a 100% tariff on French wine and champagne unless Paris scraps its digital services tax, which falls heavily on large US tech firms. The comments, made to the New York Post, did little to sour the mood between Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron at the summit — and did not derail the Strasbourg vote.
Ratifying the deal is less an act of enthusiasm than of damage control. European lawmakers backed an agreement many of them openly dislike because the alternative — an open trade war with a 15% floor and no guardrails — looked worse. The steel-and-aluminium safeguard gives Brussels a button to push if Washington reneges, but pushing it would reopen the very fight the deal was meant to settle. And Trump's wine threat is a reminder that Turnberry settles tariffs, not the underlying friction: digital taxes, tech regulation and a US administration happy to reach for tariffs whenever it wants leverage. The deal buys predictability. It does not buy peace.
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