EU lawmakers keep US trade deal in the freezer

BRUSSELS — The European Parliament’s trade lawmakers decided on Wednesday to keep the EU-U.S. trade deal frozen amidst volatile transatlantic relations. 

A majority of political groups voted not to move ahead with legislation to implement the EU’s side of the bargain struck at President Donald Trump’s Turnberry golf resort in Scotland last summer.

“We want to have clarity that they are sticking to the deal as well,” said Bernd Lange, chair of the Parliament’s International Trade Committee.

The lead negotiators will meet again on March 17 and reassess whether to schedule a committee vote that same week, according to three officials. Once the committee green-lights the trade agreement, it could be ratified in a plenary session on March 25-26. 

The latest postponement follows Trump’s threat on Tuesday to impose a trade embargo on Spain for refusing to allow U.S. warplanes stationed there to launch air strikes on Iran.

“We’re going to cut off all trade with Spain,” Trump said during a sit-down with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz in the Oval Office. “We don’t want anything to do with Spain.”

Centre-right and right-wing lawmakers had wanted to fast-track the deal and approve it in a plenary vote next week. That proposal failed to win enough support as the Social Democrats, liberals, and Greens voted against moving forward.

“Regrettably, the U.S. files have been postponed,” said Jörgen Warborn, the lead trade lawmaker of the center-right European People’s Party.

“It is a shame that an anti-Trump narrative is being pushed more strongly than a pro-European one, risking a transatlantic trade war. Citizens need clarity and predictability.”