The pact reached in late May between the Council of the European Union and the European Parliament on the texts ratifying the Turnberry Agreement marks a new stage in trade relations between Brussels and Washington. However, behind the veneer of a transatlantic thaw, the agreement reflects, above all, a risk-management approach: the objective is to avoid a renewed surge of American protectionism, while preserving the means to retaliate if the United States fails to meet its commitments, already tight.
As Coface analyzes, the main consequences of this agreement will concentrate in sectors like automotive, manufacturing, and certain agri-food branches, where there will coexist lower tariff pressure on exports with increased competition in the European market.
Averting a Return to a Trade War
Signed in the summer of 2025, when Donald Trump threatened to impose tariffs of up to 30% on European products, the Turnberry Agreement limited this level to 15%. In exchange, the European Union committed to eliminating its tariffs on US industrial imports and to improving access to the market for certain agricultural and agro-food products.
Although the agreement has been heavily criticized in Europe for being unbalanced, it follows a clear logic: to secure the trading framework and to avoid a scenario considered even more costly for European exporters.
Safeguards Against Washington
The distinctive feature of the European commitment to the new ratification lies in the protection mechanisms embedded in the implementing texts. This approach is based on three elements:
- A suspension clause in case the United States fails to meet the 15% cap, whether by introducing new tariffs or by insufficiently reducing existing ones (especially in the case of steel and aluminum products, whose tariffs can still reach up to 50%). The deadline fixed by the EU for meeting this tariff cap is December 31, 2026.
- A safeguards mechanism that can be activated in the event of an import surge causing serious harm to European industry.
- An expiry clause establishing that concessions will expire on December 31, 2029 in the absence of a legislative extension.
In this way, the EU ratifies an agreement of a conditional and reversible nature.
A European Calculus That Has Become More Fragile
Since its signing in the summer of 2025, the context has changed. The U.S. Supreme Court ruling on the use of IEEPA has reduced the Trump administration’s ability to impose mass tariff increases unilaterally.
As a consequence, the relative value of the agreement for Europe is today less clear than it was in 2025. The so-called Turnberry discount—the tariff advantage enjoyed by the EU relative to the rest of the world, excluding China—fell from 4.4 points to 1.4 points between September 2025 and March 2026.
Nevertheless, the threat has not disappeared. Recent US pressure on the manufacturing sector, as well as the possibility of new trade measures under other legal bases in the second half of the year, have convinced Europeans that the risk of escalation remains very real.
Specifically, in the case of the European manufacturing industry, the outlook is uneven. The automotive sector shows this ambiguity: European exporters will face a 15% tariff in the United States instead of 25%, but at the cost of higher competition in the European market. In agriculture, EU concessions remain more targeted, with meaningful reductions in certain processed products and tariff-rate quotas in sensitive segments, such as the dairy.
“This agreement does not signal a return to normal transatlantic trade relations. Above all, it reflects Europe’s desire to contain the risk of a new tariff escalation, while explicitly reserving the right to reverse course if the United States fails to meet its commitments,” says Olivier Rozenberg, a political analyst at Coface.
