The European Parliament is expected to approve the EU-US trade agreement next week, but the vote is likely to underline a more uncomfortable reality for Brussels: the deal is moving forward because the European Union wants predictability, not because confidence in Washington has been restored.
Bernd Lange, chair of the European Parliament’s International Trade Committee, said the Parliament was likely to back the agreement reached between the EU and the United States last year, while warning that there could be no certainty that the United States would honour its side of the arrangement. His remarks, reported by Reuters, come ahead of a plenary vote intended to implement tariff elements of the EU-US framework agreed after months of pressure from President Donald Trump’s administration.
The agreement traces back to the political deal reached in July 2025 at Trump’s Turnberry resort and later set out in an EU-US joint statement. It was designed to prevent a broader tariff confrontation by reducing EU duties on certain American industrial and agricultural goods, while securing a more manageable tariff environment for European exporters.
Yet the legislative process in Brussels has become as much about risk control as trade liberalisation. In March, the Parliament’s trade committee backed the lowering of tariffs on selected US agricultural and industrial products, but MEPs also pushed for stronger safeguards. Those safeguards were not incidental. They reflected concern that the EU could make binding concessions while the United States retains room to change course through executive action, new tariff threats or politically driven trade decisions.
A provisional understanding between Parliament and Council in May sought to address that imbalance. According to the European Parliament, the agreement included a sunset clause under which the main regulation on industrial and agri-food imports would expire on 31 December 2029 unless renewed after an assessment of its effect on EU industry, agriculture and small and medium-sized enterprises. The arrangement also strengthened Parliament’s oversight role and created mechanisms to respond if Washington failed to comply with its commitments.
Those provisions explain why the coming vote matters. It is not a routine endorsement of a transatlantic trade package. It is an attempt by the EU legislature to approve a deal while limiting exposure to the political unpredictability of the Trump administration.
The economic stakes are substantial. Transatlantic trade remains one of the largest commercial relationships in the world, and European manufacturers have an interest in avoiding a tariff escalation that could disrupt exports, supply chains and investment planning. For sectors such as automotive, machinery, chemicals, pharmaceuticals and agri-food, even a limited tariff adjustment can affect margins and pricing decisions.
However, the political context has changed since previous periods of EU-US trade diplomacy. Under Trump, tariff policy has been used not only as an economic instrument but as a tool of political leverage. The EU has therefore moved from assuming a shared framework of rules to constructing legal protections against unilateral shifts by Washington.
That shift is visible in Lange’s comments. His warning over US reliability points to a wider recalibration in Brussels: the EU wants to preserve the commercial relationship with Washington while preparing for the possibility that US commitments may not remain stable.
The position of the US administration remains different. US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said earlier this month that both sides remained committed to the agreement, while insisting that more work was needed from the EU to fulfil its side of the arrangement. His comments, also reported by Reuters, were intended to reassure markets and negotiators that the deal remained intact.
For Brussels, however, formal assurances are no longer sufficient. The safeguards negotiated into the agreement show that European institutions are trying to convert political promises into enforceable mechanisms. The expiry date in 2029 is particularly significant because it prevents the tariff concessions from becoming open-ended without review. It also gives the EU a point at which to reassess whether the agreement has delivered measurable benefits or merely locked Europe into a weaker position.
The likely parliamentary approval should therefore not be read as evidence that transatlantic trade tensions have been resolved. It is more accurately a managed compromise. The EU appears prepared to implement its commitments, but only with monitoring, suspension powers and a defined end date.
That approach reflects the EU’s broader trade dilemma under the current US administration. A confrontation with Washington would carry economic costs, especially for export-oriented member states. But an unconditional agreement would expose European industries to a partner whose trade policy can change quickly and with limited warning.
The result is a deal that Brussels may approve, but not fully trust. For the European Parliament, the coming vote will test whether legal safeguards can compensate for political uncertainty. For European business, the more important question is whether the agreement will provide enough stability to plan beyond the next tariff threat.
