Trump sets two-month deadline for EU to enact trade deal

President Donald Trump set a two-month deadline for the European Union to implement a trade deal with the U.S., before he increases tariffs to “much higher levels.” Trump doubled down on his threat to levy higher tariffs on the EU in a social media post on Thursday, as he continues to push European leaders to enact the terms of the trade accord reached in Scotland last year. The president said he relayed a July 4th deadline for the agreement during a phone call with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. “I agreed to give her until our Country’s 250th Birthday or, unfortunately, their Tariffs would immediately jump to much higher levels,” Trump said. The call came after EU negotiators and member-state governments failed to agree on the terms for implementing last summer's handshake deal between Trump and von der Leyen, in which the EU agreed to remove tariffs on U.S. industrial goods and invest billions of dollars in U.S. energy and other industries in exchange for lower tariffs on its own products. Von der Leyen said on social media Thursday that the call with Trump focused on the war in the Middle East, but that it also touched on trade. "We remain fully committed, on both sides, to [the trade deal's] implementation," von der Leyen wrote. "Good progress is being made towards tariff reduction by early July." Trump’s threat last week to raise tariffs on European automobiles to 25 percent comes as his administration has grown increasingly frustrated with Europe’s plodding effort to implement its end of the trade agreement, dubbed the Turnberry Accord, after the Trump-owned Scottish golf resort where the deal was reached. In an interview Thursday, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer underscored that not only has the trading bloc struggled to pass legislation lowering tariffs on U.S. goods, it has yet to begin addressing any of the non-tariff barriers stipulated in the initial deal. “With the tariffs, they've at least started a process. They're working it through," Greer said. "It's a pain. I understand it's slow. We're not patient. But there are other things where they haven't even started a process." “We're 95 percent compliant for nine months… and they've been 0 percent compliant during that time. What am I supposed to do?" Greer added. In targeting cars — a particularly sensitive sector for the EU and Germany — Trump sought to achieve two aims at once: to punish Berlin after Chancellor Friedrich Merz said the U.S. president had been “humiliated” in negotiations with Iran and to pressure the EU to move quicker on the trade agreement. Von der Leyen stressed that "we are united that Iran must never posses a nuclear weapon. Recent events have clearly shown that the risks to regional stability and global security are too great." Camille Gijs contributed to this report.