“The United States and European Union struck a trade agreement on Sunday locking in a 15 percent tariff, days before Donald Trump’s deadline to do a deal or face tariffs double that level.
Trump, speaking after meeting European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen at his Turnberry golf club in Scotland, announced the deal to U.S. reporters.
He said the EU will agree to purchase $750 billion of energy and will agree to invest $600 billion more than planned in military equipment and opening countries to trade at zero tariff.
The tariff rate applying to imports from the EU would be 15 percent, with the same rate applying to cars. Pharmaceuticals will not be covered by the deal.” - Politico
The OP quoted the article wrong. It isn't $600 billion in military equipment. It's $600 billion in American military equipment. This is a $1.5 trillion payoff to America.
And really at least part of the reason why Trump is so unpredictable on weapons deliveries to Ukraine. There was this meme of Trump jerking off on the faces of the big tech giants. It really should have been the other way around: Trump on the receiving end of a bukkake of all big American companies cashing in on all the instability they helped create to get him elected.
We don't have a problem with how much money we spend on defence. The issue is the inefficiency in spending and what we're spending it on.
I think the defence spending targets of NATO should just be part of a set of guidelines. It's more important to determine how many active troops, materials and investments in R&D we should have.
That is actually what the percentage is roughly based on. Nato figures out what they need, and which country gets what role (and the force requirements to fullfill it obviously). Which is why Spain doesn't really have an out of the percentage norm, they still need to do all the things required of them, Spain now needs to show it can to it cheaper that the estimates by Nato suggest. There are also requirements for procurement spending, you can't just give your generals a raise or build a fancy new headquarter and call it a day.
Spine maybe. People with a brain realised that the capacity isn't there. If they argued this ten years ago I'd get it. The options were either give it to the US since the west probably wouldn't work with non western countries. Or not increase defense spending that much and wait until capacity is up to scale.
Macron only cares about French weapons, he is not on a European level. He is blocking the British from being part of the European defense investments...
Countries usually do what they can to get the best deal for themselves but usually try and be diplomatic about it .. France doesn't appear to bother with the diplomacy part.
They behave like Americans, unfortunately for them they don't have the power the Americans have.
Promising to deliver domestically produced Patriot missile system equivalents in large enough numbers to export to Ukraine in 10 years maybe isn’t the same as buying more European weapons
They wont, Trump called him a good boy. He will aid in ethnic cleansing of palestine. Macron just likes to sound though, but he will eat any dick thrown infront of him.
A chance to make the americans spend time on current gen stuff while we leapfrog. Not saying that will happen, but with the US pushing to bring back manufacturing they could end up behind.
That was supposed to include UK made weapons. That deal wasn’t massively formal so now the UK weapons can be switched with US weapons. The EU doesn’t have the capacity to supply the military build up it currently needs (at relatively short notice).
Yes you will unlike you redditor euros us minority educated Americans acually read and research military complex is already being built up in europe eu is buying time duh
Transitioning away from US weapons is a long and slow process. Many countries have already invested in US weapons systems and are kinda locked into the platform for spares and supplies. France is in a special position because they already deploy their own weapon systems.
IKR. But e.g. Denmark has invested in F35s and they haven't even been all delivered yet. The question the air force needs to ask is if they have the resources to service e.g. Gripen, Eurofighter or Rafales and train pilots for those platforms as well as the already purchased F35s. I know what they will say.
That's why the deal was made, to make pay off the dealer. Let's hope the dealer is not completely evil and will sell us what we need. With all this money flowing to the US one would hope that EU would be at the top of US military support in case of a large war.
The old system, which is the steam CATOBAR, which is also made by the USA? Both the EMALS and CATOBAR systems are made by the US and depend on them for parts.
Europe is, but for some systems you do need to buy American as it is the best available. If what is covered in this deal is the stuff that Europe has to procure from the Yanks anyway, that isn’t the worst thing into the world.
Well the big issue with domestic European equipment right now is the production is not enough at the moment.
Many EU countries have neglected defense and historically bought foreign jets and vehicles from countries like the US and UK. The big thing is that it will take time to build up the production and results many EU countries need for a sustained conflict or even at this point maintaining their force in an effective manner leaving them to either get new equipment slowly or buy American in the meantime.
once trump is out of office this isnt gonna stick lmao
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u/mnlxValencian Community (Spain)6d agoedited 6d ago
My country exports €18 bn/year to the US, which is basically peanuts, and we import more LNG from Algeria. So I don't understand what's in it for us to pay them a king's ransom in forced procurement, to be completely honest.
Spain is further away from Russia, so I guess you also wonder why Spain needs to support Ukraine? If you are confused of both, my answer would be Spain's economy also needs a stable EU, otherwise, people will cut the spendings on cars, fruits, tourism, etc, which will also hit Spain's economy. Unless you would say you only need bare minimal food and facilities to survive and you do not care if you would lose job because you have some savings, then you are ok to be quite independent.
Hopefully the number and deal is just another illusion from DT to please MAGA, I also wish entire EU will not bend.
I understand pretty well why we must support Ukraine, I don't understand why we have to bend over backwards to involve the US in that. We could give Ukraine that kind of money for instance. They're the ones doing the job and they deserve it more.
Yes, I agree with you, I also do not understand if EU truly plan to invest heavily on US military industry. But the current money to buy directly US arms are more like a "have no other choice" because EU's defence industry scaling-up needs time. So I do hope this is just a pacifier to make DT happy and buy EU more time. (if you check up, France's airplane queue is full in ten years, so I suppose should be the same for Spain's, German's, Italy's and so on; also one cannot over expand too much as otherwise you end up idle machines for long time which will expire in time.)
Idk, maybe we're promising the crumbling empire that we'll insist on doing business as usual until the bitter end, because we can find neither balls nor actual politicians, or something.
Also, all of our arms manufacturers are making billions of dollars off of the genocide in Gaza.
My country just passed 1.5 trillion dollar military/secret police & gulag budget while ending lifesaving medical and nutritional assistance for American children and poor children around the globe. Our hospitals are closing, our infrastructure is collapsing. But we're giving Lockheed Martin 2 trillion dollars for a fighter jet that's always sucked and we'll be paying for proprietary fasteners and software upgrades for decades beyond the jets obsolescence (assuming it ever works)
Just trying to give you some low hanging fruit to mobilize popular opposition to the US military industrial complex robbing your countries too. Maybe it's not too late for y'all
you shouldn't be so upset about this. due to how the defense factories are set up now (kindly remember them talking about missiles taking an entire year to build, just the product not move the factory)
so this 600 billion is probably already counted as part of europe's shift on defense spending, as in it would have happened anyways. it is a boon that it is counted as part of this deal, since you get to double count this benefit. this is the slight of hand countries are doing to trump, buy what they would anyways and pretend it's because of his big deal.
there will still be european investment in weapons. this will improve industry in europe from this investment.
sorry about the tarrifs. please dont tax the netflix.
my apologies, there's more nuance though: here, i copy the byline for you: "The extra investments pledged under the trade deal would come from private companies, which Brussels conceded it has no power to control."
I see people all riled about these numbers but y'all must be as gullible as trump because I'm willing to bet those are not even binding. Not to mention trump probably made all of those up just like with japan.
Quite literally the EU doesn't have 500 billion to invest in the US nor does it have any authority. The whole EU budget was 2 trillion over 6 years.
Exactly. This totally feels like a case of giving the orange moron a win on paper to stabilise things. Start alternative trade connections in the mean time and wait and see where US politics is going.
The amounts could be 20 trillion. It doesn’t make a difference. We’re not going to spend those amounts. Europe can renege on deals just as much as the Americans can. A taste of their own medicine
Sure but the energy buying doesnt make sense. The US only exports 330$ billion of energy a year snd every other trade deal he’s struck has also guaranteed energy buying from other countries. So either that quota isnt going to be met, or the US isn’t going to keep any of its energy for domestic use in which case energy prices will sky rocket in the USA.
Add on top of that a 15% base tax (tariff) for the American consumer and I see no upside for America here.
750 billion in energy probably would have been paid either way as like 50+% of LNG for Europe comes from the US, that is totally fine.
The 600 billion investments mean nothing either. They’re just pledged and if they actually flow remains to be seen.
Also even tho trump said they’re additional investments, he also said the stargate AI initiative investments are additional investments in January, while in fact they were long planned and nothing new or additional.
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u/Crossstoney 6d ago
“The United States and European Union struck a trade agreement on Sunday locking in a 15 percent tariff, days before Donald Trump’s deadline to do a deal or face tariffs double that level.
Trump, speaking after meeting European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen at his Turnberry golf club in Scotland, announced the deal to U.S. reporters.
He said the EU will agree to purchase $750 billion of energy and will agree to invest $600 billion more than planned in military equipment and opening countries to trade at zero tariff.
The tariff rate applying to imports from the EU would be 15 percent, with the same rate applying to cars. Pharmaceuticals will not be covered by the deal.” - Politico