The did add nuclear fuel in the mix. Not sure what’s that worth
Spot on, this could still be shredded by member states but it doesn’t really matter most likely. Trump will forget soon enough and move to something else. Maybe learn a new word too besides “tariffs”. I wonder how the fifth columnites in Putin’s pocket - and hence Trump bootlickers like Hungary - will react.
Ultimately I personally think it’s just a strategy to wait it out until the orange is gone and someone with more than braincells than teeth comes along.
it’s not. It’s a free market. You can’t force companies to buy US gas.
Maybe via a heavy subsidy on US gas, and therefore incentivizing that.
About 600 B investments
“It is not something that the EU as a public authority can guarantee. It is something which is based on the intentions of the private companies,” said one of the senior Commission officials. The Commission has not said it will introduce any incentives to ensure the private sector meets that $600 billion target, nor given a precise timeframe for the investment.
As an economist on Al Jazeera show summarized -: this is a win win for both parties . Media Win for US and a Geo strategic win for EU (to keep US as ally in Ukralne war, keep access to US goods market & secure energy & Defence supply for the short term).
Survive and advance to live another day in a very dangerous world with no real allies 
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FYI analyst also seem to think the energy purchases won’t happen (because private sector has duty to get best price and the scale is just too much)
Trump’s EU oil and gas deal is ‘pie in the sky’, energy experts warn
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The WSJ seems to think the same: Trump’s $750 Billion Deal for U.S. Energy Collides With Market Reality - WSJ
Excerpt: “Even if the EU were to buy the entirety of U.S. crude and LNG exports, the annual value of its purchases would total only $141 billion,” according to research firm Gavekal.
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I am wondering - why this deal was even made. Perhaps there is a plan to rapidly expand US LNG exports. But this would seem to be going completely against Circularity & Climate topic.
Because the timeframe was not defined for the investments. Could be 10, 20 or 50 years. EU actually finessed Trump.
No. It was defined. At least in the framework.
Both these numbers are meant to be achieved during remainder of Trump‘s tenure. More or less 3 year period
I think 750B was clearly outlined by EU president in her press conference. She said their estimate is 250 B per year to completely eliminate Russia as supplier
The 600b (investments) is mainly being mentioned by US team and was not part of UvdL press conference
Might have been the smart thing: get 15% (incl car and pharmaceutical) and 0% on 70B. Promise something they won’t do anyway because it’s outside of their control (China did something similar in first term).
Then see what happens, if the purchase/investment won’t happen that will take a few years for Trump admin to react and at this point the focus might be elsewhere.
And FR/DE get to blame Brussels in the meantime which is good for internal politics (even so they were also the ones who didn’t want to go nuclear on retaliation).
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Interesting. I really think Europe needs to stop relying on exports driven model for future. Both US (due to extortionist approach) & China (due to local competition) will become tough to deal with and compete.
Only thing i can think of is to use Digital services as growth engine for EU. consumption is already there, but production is not. So if regional industry can grow, that can help with job creation too.
Some market analysis: EU-US Trade Deal: A Damage Limitation Success
(and they’re right to point out they avoided all the worst stuff from April, VAT/food regulations/auto and pharma tariffs/etc)
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ChatGPT says that the few countries who’re not particularly reliant on exports for their GDP are the US, Brazil, India and Nepal. The first three because of big internal markets, the last because it relies on remittance.
Under reliance on exporting (whatever it may be, including services and tourism) is something I can’t get my head around, as I feel that international trade is necessary, otherwise one is operating in a closed loop where they can endlessly recycle money between govt and population but nobody is getting any richer (growth, you mentioned), but I am aware I am not sufficiently knowledgeable.
You can have a closed loop ecosystem (I mean earth is one, right so a big economy could probably be as well as long as they have access to the right natural resources).
It’s more that we’re a lot more productive the more global and frictionless trade is, then every part of the world can leverage what they’re good at and specialization makes things more efficient. Do we need 20 countries knowing how to make airliners? Should every country manufacture every single drug? Every single chemical compound, etc? (so you probably want to balance things out, but e.g. US/EU was already balanced anyway, now we’re just adding friction)
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Yes, I get it and agree with you, I think I get a hold-up because in my simple mind when I remember that energy is conserved in a closed system given Newton’s laws of thermodynamics - I am not trolling - whereas in economics and finance (not sciences) money can be created out of thin air, so the ecosystem balance doesn’t have to be zero.
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Export driven economic growth is typically used by smaller countries. This was pioneered by Japan which was later emulated by South Korea and Germany too. Later China also took advantage of this model too.
The challenge with this type of growth is that it depends a lot on other economies. This is why countries with large population are better off with consumption driven economies in long run.
I can understand that Germany prefers to be exporters but this also concentrates the knowledge in few sectors. At an European level, I think given the large consumption base, EU can be self reliant and have a net trade balance = 0. Of course you always need to import what you do not have.
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For the record, as I’ve been pretty vocal that ex-US, ex-China was the future of investing for me. The deal between the US and the EU signals to me that the US can stay a viable economic power and that other countries aren’t banding together to reorganize trade outside of them.
ex-US countries are probably searching for alternative trade partners but are still competing for access to the US market doing so, so are going at it from a competitors mindset rather than a truly collaborative one.
I no more consider the US as a direct investment risk by themselves (their economy is still probably going to suffer internally but global trade is less likely to end up upside down in my view) and would consider global market cap weighting not riskier than ex-US investing from a purely investing standpoint.
Not that my opinion matters at all in the grand scheme of things (and not that it has been especially right in the past, which it hasn’t) but I wanted to correct my apparent stance on this forum as it has shifted.
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There’s nothing to correct opinions change.
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The two versions of US - EU trade deal
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Supply chains takes decades to change.
They will have to change anyways. EU & US will continue to lose market share in global trade as economic growth is higher in other areas. But in short term I wouldn’t expect much change.
Having said that trade deals are mainly for show, they don’t impact US economy that much because main economy is services.
What is yet to be seen is will US companies be preferred partners 10 years from now or they will seen with same suspicion as people look at Chinese companies today (state control, suspicious, etc)
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