The European Union is poised to freeze the ratification process of its trade deal with the US and is seeking more details from President Donald Trump’s administration on its new tariff program, Bloomberg News reported on Monday.
Zeljana Zovko, the lead trade negotiator in the European People’s Party group on the US deal, told Bloomberg in an interview that the EU has "no other option" but to delay the approval process to seek to clarity on the situation.
The center-right EPP group is the largest political bloc in the European parliament.
Trump said Saturday that he wants a global tariff of 15%, up from the 10% he announced a day earlier.
American and EU officials sealed a trade deal last year that imposes a 15% import tax on 70% of European goods exported to the United States. The European Commission handles trade for the 27 EU member countries.
The value of EU-US trade in goods and services amounted to 1.7 trillion euros ($2 trillion) in 2024, or an average of 4.6 billion euros a day, according to EU statistics agency Eurostat.
