Outlook for a future EU-US trade agreement is poor

Subject

EU-US trade.

Significance

US President Donald Trump’s ‘America First’ trade policy threatens the highly interconnected transatlantic economy. This presents a serious challenge to the EU and certain member states more than others, and resolving this tension is unlikely in the near future.

Impacts

• Some US protectionist trade tendencies are likely to continue post-Trump.
• Trump's accusations that the euro is unfairly undervalued raises the (faint) prospect of an even more profound transatlantic dispute.
• The importance of the US economy to European firms enables Washington to enforce secondary sanctions.