Strasbourg, France, Jan 21 (EFE).- The European Parliament decided on Wednesday to halt ratification of the trade agreement signed by Brussels and Washington last summer.
The parliament cited threats by US President Donald Trump against several European countries amid his push to acquire Greenland.
“EU-US deal is on hold until further notice! Our negotiating team just decided to suspend work…on the legal implementation of Turnberry deal. Our sovereignty and territorial integrity are at stake. Business as usual impossible,” chair of the European Parliament’s Trade Committee Bernd Lange wrote on X, with Greenland and tariffs hashtags.
The Turnberry deal would have suspended tariffs on all US industrial goods and established a tariff-rate quota system for a large number of US agri-food products entering the European Union.
“By threatening the territorial integrity and sovereignty of an EU member state and by using tariffs as a coercive instrument, the US is undermining the stability and predictability of EU-US trade relations,” the European Parliament said in a statement.
Trump has threatened Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, Finland, Norway, and the United Kingdom with tariffs of 10 percent starting Feb. 1 if they oppose his plans to acquire Greenland, rising to 25 percent in June.
Under the agreement signed by Trump and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Brussels accepted 15 percent tariffs on most European exports, including automobiles and semiconductors, while US industrial goods would enter the EU duty-free.
Since then, European exports to the US have been subject to the 15 percent tariff, but the EU has yet to implement its side of the deal, pending ratification by the European Parliament—a process now suspended indefinitely.
Lange said the trade panel will formally ask the European Commission on Monday to activate the EU’s anti-coercion mechanism against the United States in response to Trump’s threats.
European leaders are set to discuss the issue on Thursday at an extraordinary summit in Brussels, where they will consider how to redefine relations with what has traditionally been the EU’s main ally.
The summit agenda also includes a debate on whether to impose retaliatory tariffs worth up to 93 billion euros on US goods, a measure the EU could have enacted last year but chose to suspend to avoid derailing negotiations that ultimately led to the summer trade agreement. EFE
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