BRUSSELS — The European Commission will ask the Donald Trump administration to exempt a list of sensitive EU goods ranging from whiskies through to medical equipment from U.S. tariffs, according to a 27-page list seen by POLITICO. Pasta, cheese, wines and spirits, as well as olive oil and sunglasses, are among the priority sectors that Brussels wants Washington to shield from higher tariffs, along with diamonds, tools, metal pipes, ship engine parts, industrial equipment, fabrics, shoes, hats, ceramics and industrial robots.  The wish list was finalized Friday by EU countries and will be presented to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Trade Representative Jamieson Greer at a meeting with the bloc’s trade ministers on Monday, POLITICO previously reported.  These sensitive export sectors were not covered under the trade deal struck in July by Trump and Commission President Ursula von der Leyen at his Turnberry golf resort in Scotland.  The deal, detailed in a joint statement the following month, exempted some items, such as aircraft and generic drugs, but imposed a 15 percent tariff on most other European exports, while the EU committed to scrap its tariffs on U.S. industrial goods entirely. The EU’s pitch for tariff relief comes just as Trump is pivoting away from the across-the-board tariffs he imposed on U.S. trading partners earlier this year, following a string of off-year election defeats for Republican candidates in which the rising cost of living swayed voters.  A week ago, he struck down “reciprocal tariffs” on more than 200 goods worldwide, including products used in fertilizer, tropical fruits like bananas and pineapples, coffee and several spices like cocoa, cinnamon and coriander. In his latest move, Trump on Thursday eliminated tariffs on a large swath of Brazilian agricultural goods, including beef and coffee, dropping the additional, punitive tariffs he imposed this summer as he feuded with Brazil’s government and President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. The EU’s ask to lift tariffs on pasta is particularly sensitive in Italy, where the industry is reeling from the Trump administration’s threat to impose 92 percent tariffs from January in an anti-dumping case, on top of the 15 percent already in force — a level so high as to prohibit exports to the United States. This story has been updated.

VENICE, Italy — Luca Zaia, a towering force in northern Italian politics, is plotting his next move and that’s turning into a headache for his party, the far-right League, led by firebrand Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini. As regional president of Veneto, the wealthy region of 5 million people around Venice, Zaia is one of the League’s superstars, but his mandate comes to an end after an election this weekend. That is sparking intense speculation about his ambitions — not least because his political vision is so different from Salvini’s. While Salvini is steering the League away from its separatist roots — no longer seeking to rip the rich industrialized north away from poorer southern Italy — Zaia remains a vocal advocate for northern autonomy from Rome. He is also more moderate on immigration, climate and LGBTQ+ rights than his right-wing populist party chief. One of the big questions looming over Italian politics is whether these two rival visions can survive within the League, a party at the heart of Giorgia Meloni’s coalition government. Zaia himself suggests the League could split into two allied factions along the lines of the Christian Democratic Union and Christian Social Union on Germany’s center right.   MEET THE DOGE Nicknamed the “Doge of Venice,” Zaia, a former Italian agriculture minister, has spent 15 of his 57 years running Veneto from an office lined with emerald silk in a 16th-century palazzo on the Grand Canal. He won eight out of 10 votes cast in 2020, the highest approval rating of any regional chief, but is barred from running again because of a two-term limit. In an interview with POLITICO, he joked about the whirl of theories about his next steps. “I am in the running for everything: [energy giant] ENI, Venice, parliament, minister.” But when pressed on what he will do, he gave nothing away, only that his focus is squarely on the north. “I gave up a safe seat in Brussels a year ago to stay here,” he said, only adding he would work until the last day of his mandate. “Then I’ll see.” Amid internal power struggles in the League, Zaia is increasingly seen as an alternative leadership figure by those unhappy with its trajectory.  Zaia has clashed with Salvini’s deputy leader Gen. Roberto Vannacci over his revisionist views of the fascist era under Benito Mussolini, but has held back from criticizing Salvini openly. Zaia, right, at the closing event of the center-right coalition’s campaign for the Veneto regional elections in support of Alberto Stefani, left, Nov. 18. | Alessandro Bremec/NurPhoto via Getty Images When asked whether Salvini made strategic mistakes as party leader, he stayed cryptically diplomatic. “We all make mistakes,” he replied. A CHANGING LEAGUE When Zaia joined what was then the Northern League in the 1990s it was a separatist movement, opposed to tax redistribution from the wealthy north to the south, perceived as corrupt and inefficient. But under Salvini’s leadership, the rebranded League became a nationwide party, with a strand increasingly courting the extreme right. This approach has alienated both mainstream voters, and more moderate and north-focused activists, for whom Zaia is a political lodestar. One major bugbear is Salvini’s drive to build a €14 billion bridge between Calabria and Sicily, seen by separatists as a wasteful southern project sucking in northern tax revenue. In a sign of the shifting tectonic plates, one faction, supported by the Northern League’s founder Umberto Bossi, and that has in recent years unsuccessfully tried to oust Salvini, last week launched a new party, the Pact for the North. Its leader, former MP Paolo Grimoldi, expelled from the League after 34 years, told POLITICO his group would welcome Zaia “with open arms.”  Zaia and other northern governors “just have to find the courage to say publicly what they have been saying privately for some time, that Salvini has completely betrayed the battles of the League.” Zaia himself is recommending a new-look League modeled on the German CDU-CSU, with sister League parties catering to Italy’s north and south. He aired the idea in a new book by journalist Bruno Vespa, pointing out the CSU had a separate Bavarian identity within the German Christian Democrat family. “We could do the same here,” he said. Most political insiders and observers think it unlikely that Zaia would seek a national leadership role — being too associated with Veneto — but he would be an obvious choice to lead the northern wing of a divided party. For Salvini, this internal schism is an obvious challenge. He has said he’s intrigued by the CDU-CSU idea, but few believe him. He needs to find something to prevent Zaia from turning into a nuisance, and has proposed him for a vacant parliamentary seat in Rome and as mayor of Venice. “It’s up to him to decide if he stays in Veneto or brings Veneto to Rome,” Salvini said at an event in Padua last weekend. MAYOR OF VENICE? Which way will Zaia jump? A return to Rome seems unappetizing. “When he was minister, he didn’t like Rome”, said a political colleague. “Rome’s values are not the values of Veneto.  In Veneto, we value meritocracy, work, effort, seriousness in politics. In Rome it’s all compromise.” Which makes Venice the more likely option, if he does decide to avoid a head-on clash with Salvini. Zaia would be very well set to run for mayor of Venice next May, according to the MP and two friends of Zaia’s from Veneto. He has a manifesto ready: Autonomy for Venice. Venice should become a city-state with special powers to address its unique problems of depopulation, overtourism and climate change, he said in the interview. Zaia’s popularity in Veneto, according to the locals, derives from his down-to-earth persona. He’s better known for speaking in regional dialect and attending traditional events, rather than being snapped at glamorous galas or on the fleet of speedboats at his disposal, rocking gently at his Grand Canal doorstep.   He was also lauded for his handling of the Covid pandemic, readying Veneto for the Winter Olympics next year and even helping boost exports of Prosecco sparkling wine. Local lore holds that half of Veneto’s 5 million residents have his phone number. “Maybe even more,” he quipped. “I have never changed my number, people know they can call me if they have a serious problem.” DISCO DOGE Raised in a small village near Treviso, just 30 kilometers from Venice, he was an unusually independent and motivated teenager, passionate about horses and teaching himself Latin on Sundays, according to one classmate. At university, where he graduated in animal husbandry, he supported himself by running club nights in local discos. It was a useful training for politics, Zaia said. “Clubs are a great school of life. You meet humanity in all its forms: rich, poor, good, bad, violent, peaceful.” One of the big questions looming over Italian politics is whether these two rival visions can survive within the League, a party at the heart of Giorgia Meloni’s coalition government. | Ivan Romano/Getty Images Indeed, it seems he took the role ultraseriously. “I never saw Luca dance. For him it was work,” said the same former classmate. He entered politics in the aftermath of the 1990s Clean Hands scandal, a nationwide corruption investigation, which took down a generation of politicians, and became a rising star in the region. As well as being the youngest provincial president in Italy, adorning Treviso with numerous surprisingly popular roundabouts, he was minister of agriculture in Silvio Berlusconi’s government. He is sufficiently self-assured to diverge from central League dogma when he sees fit. He tried to bring in a law this year to regulate doctor-assisted suicide in contrast to national League policy. He also supports sex education in schools, something the League opposes. “When it’s an ethical matter … I  have my own ideas, regardless of what the party says,” he said. But he is clearly smarting about the party’s deal with Meloni to keep the Zaia brand out of the campaign for this weekend’s Veneto election. The original plan, which would have given him significant ongoing influence in the region, was for him to choose a list of regional councilors to go on the ballot and for the League logo to feature his name, he told journalists on the sidelines of a Venice Commission event in October. “If they see me as a problem, I’ll become a real problem,” he threatened. (He will still appear on the ballot as a candidate for regional councilor, giving him yet another option — stay on to assist his successor.) If he does decide to chart his own political path as mayor of Venice next year, at least he won’t have far to go. The doge needs only to step into one of his speedboats to whizz off to the mayor’s equally opulent palazzo along the Grand Canal.

On the edge of Burgenland, Austria, Werner Michlits Jr. is busy harvesting grapes. That’s a welcome distraction from the waiting game EU-U.S. trade negotiations have put him and other winemakers in, wondering if they’ll lose their most lucrative market. Winemakers in Europe and their import and distribution partners in the U.S. are facing twin crises: a 15 percent tariff on European wine entering the U.S. and a declining dollar. Many American importers stocked up on wine ahead of an Aug. 1 tariff deadline, leaving them cash-strapped for the next few months and placing winemakers in a holding pattern while trade negotiations continue. Michlits, who runs the Meinklang farm and winery with his wife and parents, exports more than a third of its wine to the U.S. Some importers have asked if he can lower prices to offset tariffs. “But it’s impossible. We are already at our maximum,” he said. “It’s a little bit sad, because we have so much invested in this relationship. In the end, it’s the consumers in America that have to pay, or they will drink other wines.”  European exporters have long benefited from tariff-free access to the American market on most alcohol and had hoped they would win an exemption in the trade deal struck this summer. A 15 percent rate isn’t as bad as it could have been. President Donald Trump at one point threatened 200 percent.  “From one day to the next, our exports stopped for an entire month,” said Ignacio Sánchez Recarte, secretary-general of European Committee of Wine Companies, or CEEV, which represents EU wine companies.   But it’s still significant. CEEV estimates that the wine industry could lose €800 million to €1 billion over the next year. It’s not only that Europeans will stop sending wines, but producers will also earn less on the wines they are sending.  Lamberto Frescobaldi, one of the largest wine producers in Italy, said the average price of Italian wine being sent to the U.S. has dropped 10 percent over the past three months.  “It kills me to think we would be less involved in the U.S. For many Italians, the U.S. has been the country of home, opportunity. It is a very, very difficult thing that we are not a good guest any longer there,” said the 30th-generation Florentine winemaker. ‘A FRAGILE AND SCARY TIME’  Across the ocean, it’s killing their counterparts, too.  “A wine that a restaurant bought in November of last year is going to be 35 percent more expensive this year,” said Ben Aneff, president of the U.S. Wine Trade Alliance, citing tariffs and the plunging dollar. “It’s hard to overstate the problem we expect that to start causing.”  European winemakers exported more than €4.88 billion worth of wine in 2024 to the U.S., their largest destination market. In parallel, for every dollar generated by wine exporters, American distribution and hospitality sectors earn $4.50, the European industry estimates. Importers and distributors have been hit hardest so far. Aneff said that European wines account for 75 percent of the industry’s profits. Most distributors have halted all hiring, and some have started layoffs. Harry Root, owner of Grassroots Wine in Charleston, South Carolina, focuses on small, family-owned wineries around the world, with about 60 percent of them in Europe. At this time last year his business was growing 13 percent year-on-year. This year, sales are flat. “And the only reason it’s flat is because we’ve had competitors going out of business. It’s a fragile and scary time,” Root said. His strategy for the rest of the year is to be more conservative with his European buying. But like most importers, he bought as much as possible before tariffs took effect.  BAD FOR EUROPE, BAD FOR THE U.S. This causes other issues though, particularly for American wineries.  “Subsequently, we have had to slow purchase from American producers because we have so much capital tied up in tariffs and EU wine,” said Root.  The way wine sales work in the U.S. goes back to the Prohibition era a century ago, when most states implemented what’s known as the three-tier system. Wineries sell to distributors, who sell to retailers and restaurateurs, who sell to consumers. Even if a retailer really wants a certain domestic wine, or has a good relationship with a winemaker, they cannot go out and purchase that wine on their own. “No other product in the country is sold this way,” said Aneff. “Distributors, who sometimes make up to 65 percent of revenue from imported wine, when they get a huge tariff bill, they buy less, including less American wine. Last time this happened, we had U.S. wineries who lost their distribution in states like New York because distributors had financial issues caused by tariffs.” That’s why American wine groups including Napa Valley Vintners, The Wine Institute, Wine America, and the National Association of Wine Retailers have sent a joint letter to Trump asking him to reconsider his European tariffs. They warned that the 15 percent tariff rate could reduce American alcohol sales by nearly $2 billion and put 25,000 U.S. jobs at risk.  “We import about $4.5 billion of European wine a year, resulting in $23 billion worth of sales in the U.S.,” said Aneff. “That surplus goes to the 6,000 importers and distributors who have employees, to independent retailers, to hundreds of thousands of restaurants and their employees. There is no other imported product that would have economics like that.” The wine world is in trouble not only because of tariffs. Climate change and extreme weather events and declining consumption are threatening the industry in both Europe and the U.S. But those are long-term problems, while this is immediate. WHAT CONSUMERS WANT The next few months will be telling as consumers grapple with higher prices. Wine is not fungible: the whole point of terroir is that wine is distinct, and of a place. A Pinot Noir from Burgundy is not the same as a Pinot Noir from Oregon. Both can be fantastic, but they’re different. “The flat reality is that when someone wants a burgundy from France, that’s what they want. If you go to the grocery store and want strawberries and they say ‘Here’s tomatoes,’ that’s not the same thing,” said Aneff. He’s had to raise prices on effectively everything at Tribeca Wine Merchants, his wine shop in New York City, to offset tariffs — even on U.S. wines.  But not everyone sees doomsday ahead. Peter Eizel, wine buyer at Martha’s Vineyard, a busy wine shop in Grand Rapids, Michigan, said he thinks consumers are willing to pay a couple dollars more for European wines.  He stocked up earlier this year, but there are some bottles you can only buy in certain seasons, like Beaujolais Nouveau. He ordered his cases a few weeks ago and said wines that he would normally sell for $10 will go for $11.99. He expects them to still fly off the shelves.  “If I said to someone, ‘Well the price of X, Y, Z wine is gonna go up $2 or $5, but I have this other wine from this country over here and it’s quality-wise about the same, and I can get it to you $4 cheaper,’ my customers will say, ‘I don’t care that it’s cheaper, it tastes different,’” he said.  The organizers of Vinitaly, the world’s largest wine show, are betting he’s right. Vinitaly has run in Verona for 58 years, but this October will stage its fair in Chicago for the second time. Adolfo Rebughini, general manager of Veronafiere, which organizes Vinitaly, expects about 1,600 U.S. buyers in Chicago this year — a strong number despite the situation.  “We’re going full steam ahead with the U.S. because it is such a critical market for Italian wine producers,” Rebughini said.  Italian wine exports to the U.S. account for roughly €2 billion per year, according to Rebughini. Veronafiere estimates the Italian wine sector could lose €317 million per year, but if the dollar keeps weakening that could reach €450 million.  Certain wines are more at risk. Sixty percent of all Moscato d’Asti is exported to the U.S., 48 percent of all Pinot Grigio and 46 percent of all Chianti. Some European wineries are looking outside the U.S., particularly to Canada, Mexico and Brazil. They welcome the EU’s deal with the South American Mercosur bloc and are excited about a prospective free-trade accord with India, where wine is currently taxed at 150 percent nationally, plus state taxes. But any benefit from those deals could be years away.  “We try to compensate with other markets, but there is no way that any other trade alternative that the EU could have could compensate for the losses of the U.S.” said Recarte of CEEV. “We understand that the Commission has been supporting us strongly, asking wines and spirits to have a special status in the second package.” Trade Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič told European lawmakers last week that he was working to expand exemptions on the 15 percent U.S. tariffs to include wine and spirits, signaling that no progress has yet been made.  For now, winemakers are living in limbo.  “We all still hope this disappears as fast as it appeared,” said Michlits, pausing the harvest for a rain break. “We all want tariffs to go away.”

Last week, as the leaders of other Western nations used their trips to the United Nations to announce recognition of a Palestinian state, President Donald Trump was able to do little but watch disapprovingly. But now that a question about Israel is coming to the fore in a very different international organization, Trump finds himself with potentially much more power. Next week, the executive committee of soccer’s European governing body UEFA could vote to suspend Israel from the continental federation where its teams have competed internationally since the 1990s. Dozens of UEFA members have encouraged the organization to reconsider Israel’s standing, which could begin a process of effectively banishing the country entirely from international soccer, much as UEFA and its global analogue FIFA did in 2022 with Russia after its invasion of Ukraine. Trump, who has proposed undoing the Russian ban as part of a potential resolution to its war with Ukraine, now may be the only world leader with the influence to keep Israel from the same fate. It is an unanticipated source of influence for Trump in his second term, derived entirely from the United States’ temporary position as the primary host of next summer’s World Cup. “We will absolutely work to fully stop any effort to attempt to ban Israel’s national soccer team from the World Cup,” a State Department spokesperson told POLITICO. Trump has dangled the ability to compete as a possible reward for Russia to end its war in Ukraine and is expected to enforce his antagonistic posture toward Iran by blocking the country’s fans from traveling into the U.S. to cheer on their team. Some prominent Brazilians fear his administration will limit visas to spectators or government officials from their nation, too, as a way of gaining an upper hand in trade negotiations. “We know soccer is so important to so many countries all around the world,” White House FIFA World Cup Taskforce head Andrew Giuliani told POLITICO last month. “The president knows that better than anybody, and I think he’s willing to utilize whatever he has to to actually create peace around the world.” SWITCH OF PLAY When FIFA awarded the United States co-hosting duties for the 2026 tournament, Trump celebrated it as personal affirmation. “I fought very hard to get it in the U.S., Mexico and Canada,” he said in June 2018. “We are very honored to be chosen.” But Trump did not expect to be in office when the tournament took place in the summer of 2026. Now that it is months away, Trump is finding that being at the center of the world’s preeminent sporting event — and the practical and symbolic power that accompanies it — provides him a new, unexpected tool to use to advance American interests. Trump has grasped for leverage in international negotiations wherever he can find it, often mixing issues traditional diplomats would keep at a distance. He threatened to impose tariffs on French wine unless the country cut its tax on digital services, and on all imports from Mexico if it did not curb outbound migration. He floated intervening in the prosecution of a Huawei executive to help secure a trade deal with China. Trump expressed a willingness to mix sports and diplomacy in May, when he learned during the inaugural meeting of his White House task force that Russia was forbidden from participating in the tournament. The country had been under a joint ban from FIFA and UEFA, dating from the early days of the Ukraine invasion in February 2022, which excluded Russian teams from all international competition. (Those policies have since been relaxed to permit youth teams to compete under certain conditions.) Trump suggested that allowing Russia to compete again “could be a good incentive” for the country to end the war, a top diplomatic priority that continues to elude and frustrate Trump. “We want to get them to stop,” said Trump, sitting next to FIFA President Gianni Infantino. “Five thousand young people a week are being killed. That’s not even believable.” During another White House visit by Infantino three months later, Trump again invoked Vladimir Putin, this time brandishing a photograph of the two men together in an attempt to spur Russia’s president to resume negotiations over a possible truce. “He’s been very respectful of me and of our country, but not so respectful of others,” Trump said in the Oval Office, with the World Cup trophy at his side. “He may be coming and he might not, depending on what happens. We have a lot of things coming in the next couple of weeks!” A senior White House official granted anonymity to discuss Trump’s thinking on the World Cup said that the president’s priority is to showcase American ingenuity, spotlight domestic infrastructure and highlight the economic impact of his policies on the country’s cities — not to use tournament plans as leverage in other negotiations. But if they yield progress toward ending wars as a byproduct, the official said, Trump would happily accept it. James Talarico on immigration, his faith, and how Democrats are getting it wrong Much of Trump’s new influence comes from his close personal rapport with Infantino, who has spent significant time ingratiating himself with American political figures and raising his public profile. He has met with Trump at least a dozen times and traveled the country on a campaign-style tour of host cities for the World Cup and this year’s Club World Cup. Now the State Department may be counting on that relationship, as the Trump administration tries to aid an ally losing support from other Western countries from also losing its position on the soccer field. THE WANDERING TEAM Since Israel’s founding in 1948, the country has struggled to find a permanent home in the governing structure of international soccer. Unlike most national teams, which fight for World Cup places against other teams on their continent, Israel is functionally unable to play against its neighbors due to an Arab League boycott in place since the country’s 1948 founding. (Israel won its sole major international trophy, the 1964 Asian Cup, only after 11 of the 15 other competitors withdrew.) After a brief period competing as a far-flung outlier in the Oceania Football Confederation, Israel joined the Union of European Football Associations in 1991. Instead of traveling to Beirut or Kuala Lumpur for foreign matches, Israeli players are now more likely to end up in Dublin or Athens. That has subjected Israel to new political pressures since the Hamas attacks of Oct. 7, 2023, and its military response. Then, citing security concerns, UEFA decided to indefinitely relocate all international matches from Israel, forcing the country’s teams to play in neutral locations overseas. The country has played its home matches for World Cup qualifying in Hungary. The situation has grown even more complicated as European public opinion has turned aggressively against Israel amid its siege of Gaza. Many European clubs no longer want to host Israeli squads in continent-wide tournaments. When the Israeli national team has traveled to play qualifying matches in other countries, some national governments have imposed travel restrictions on players, while others limited stadium attendance due to security concerns. The national team, which remains in contention to reach next year’s World Cup, now faces two crucial matches next month in countries whose soccer leadership have been critical of its actions in Gaza. Italy’s federation president has said “there is nobody who could be indifferent to this feeling of suffering and pain,” while the Norwegian Football Federation announced in August that it would donate proceeds from the match to organizations delivering aid in Gaza. “Neither we nor other organizations can remain indifferent to the humanitarian suffering and disproportionate attacks that the civilian population in Gaza has been subjected to for a long time,” federation president Lise Klaveness said then. Well over half of UEFA’s 55 member associations have called on its leadership to take action against Israel, a high-ranking UEFA official told POLITICO, prompting ongoing discussions within soccer’s governing body about how to deal with Israeli clubs and the national team. UEFA’s executive committee could vote to suspend Israeli club teams from European club tournaments. Maccabi Tel Aviv saw its Europa League match last week in Thessaloniki, Greece, met with protesters carrying a banner that said GENOCIDE. UEFA officials, granted anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, justified the discussions to boot Israel from continental competitions by citing security concerns. “We are responsible for the safety of fans and players in the stadiums,” one representative said, noting that match organizers “fear fatalities.” A UEFA decision to suspend Israeli club teams could provoke a similar campaign forcing FIFA to reconsider the place of the country’s national team in World Cup qualifying. A State Department statement said the U.S. government would work to block any “attempt to ban Israel’s national soccer team from the World Cup,” but it did not address European club competitions under UEFA’s purview. If the United States were not hosting next year’s tournament, it would be just one of 208 member nations in FIFA — a weaker position than it has in the United Nations, where at least the U.S. can wield a security-council veto to relieve pressure on Israel. (It did so again this month to block a draft resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.) But Infantino is highly motivated to keep Trump happy as a way to ensure preparations for next summer’s tournament proceed with full federal support. It is unclear whether Trump has personally appealed on Israel’s behalf to Infantino, who has asked UEFA’s President Aleksander Čeferin to approach the matter with patience, according to a European soccer official, citing the possibility that a peace deal between Israel and Hamas could moot the question. “It’s looking like we have a deal on Gaza, and we’ll let you know. I think it’s a deal that will get the hostages back. It’s going to be a deal that will end the war,” Trump told reporters before departing the White House on Friday. EVERYWHERE YOU WANT TO BE Trump’s willingness to commingle the World Cup with his other diplomatic challenges is winning attention worldwide from those who think he could wield the easiest power at his disposal — to control who enters the United States during the five-week tournament — as a cudgel. That power was on display around last week’s United Nations General Assembly, when Trump’s administration used it to punish representatives of countries vexing his foreign-policy agenda, several of which have qualified for a place in the World Cup. A visa issued to Brazilian Health Minister Alexandre Padilha circumscribed his movements to the U.N. headquarters and a few blocks around his hotel, while Iranian diplomats were barred from shopping at Costco and Sam’s Club without State Department permission. On Friday, the State Department announced it was revoking the visa of Colombian President Gustavo Petro after he spoke at a pro-Palestinian gathering while in New York. Iran is among the 12 countries whose citizens face a total travel ban under an executive order Trump signed in June. Two others, Equatorial Guinea and Haiti, could still qualify for the World Cup. (The ban also partially restricts travel from another seven countries, none of which are still in contention for a tournament spot.) Under the order, Iranian fans will be barred from the United States next summer, despite historical precedent in which World Cup hosts allow ticketholders free border entry. “You’ll have an issue with [visas for] Iran,” Giuliani told POLITICO. Although the travel ban includes an exemption for athletes, coaches and essential personnel participating in “major sporting events,” including the World Cup, that carveout does not extend to fans. American authorities will still have to approve visas for heads of state, business leaders and other prominent officials hoping to cheer on their teams. “There are other conversations [about Iran] that are teed up for the president and Secretary Kristi Noem and Vice President [JD] Vance, which we’ll be discussing here in the fall,” Giuliani said, in an interview at the Department of Homeland Security’s headquarters. Brazilian officials worry that the administration could weaponize World Cup visas for the country’s sports fans, part of a spiraling conflict with its origins in a prosecution of former President Jair Bolsonaro and the aggressive enforcement by the country’s election regulator against online political speech. CNN reported in July that Trump is actively considering blocking visas for Brazilian fans. Since then, the State Department has imposed visa restrictions on Brazilian judicial officials and their families and Trump has imposed a 50 percent tariff rate as payback for what he characterizes as a “witch hunt” of Bolsonaro. A Brazilian government official cautioned that it was unlikely that American consular officials would deny visas en masse for Brazilian nationals wanting to attend the World Cup and noted that Brazilians already encounter lengthy delays in obtaining visas to enter the United States. But the Trump administration has already demonstrated a willingness to interfere with international sporting events in the service of its diplomatic aims. Iran’s men’s team was denied visas to compete in next month’s FIP Arena Polo World Championship in Virginia, reported the Tehran Times this week, much as a Venezuelan Little League team and Cuban women’s volleyball team were earlier in the year. Those events foreshadow the higher-stakes flashpoints that could arise as the list of 48 countries that will send teams to the World Cup is finalized this fall. Among those that have already secured a place are some where Trump might be looking for any possible geopolitical edge. The U.S. is still trying to wrangle a new trade deal with South Korea, for example, while Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has said the United States “stands ready to do what is needed” as it works to boost Argentina’s President Javier Milei’s fortunes ahead of an Oct. 26 election. “Many times, it’s sports diplomacy that creates opportunities for foreign leaders who might not see other things eye to eye, to actually sit down,” Giuliani said. “By the time the World Cup kicks off next June, hopefully we have some of these foreign wars solved.”

BRUSSELS — European farming leaders and green groups are girding for a long, hard fight following the Commission’s bombshell proposal for a new long-term budget and Common Agricultural Policy directly before the summer recess.  They share two fears upon returning to Brussels: that funding is under threat, and that member countries could take drastically different approaches to divvying up the money. Member countries will need to give out a minimum of €294 billion in income support for farmers between 2028 and 2034, according to the European Commission’s new proposal. That reduced cash pot includes subsidies based on the size of farms, incentives for eco-friendly practices, support for new and young farmers, and a host of other funding streams.  “The competition within each member state that these priorities will have is really very high,” anticipated Marco Contiero, EU agriculture policy director at Greenpeace.  Contiero wasn’t optimistic that environmental measures will triumph: “The budget dedicated to environmental measures and climate action — that’s where a massacre has taken place, unfortunately.” “It’s up to member states,” he continued. “They can, if there is willingness, increase enormously the action to make our farming more sustainable … But looking at the history of member states’ decisions, this is extremely unlikely.” The reform proposal follows a season of rural discontent across Europe earlier last year, with tractors lining the streets to express rage over cuts to fuel subsidies, high costs and cheap imports. As the European election that followed brought a farmer-friendly political tilt, lawmakers and farm lobbies expressed strong opposition to the Commission’s proposals. Copa-Cogeca, the powerful EU farmers’ lobby, in a statement labeled the proposed new agricultural policy and long-term budget the “Black Wednesday of European agriculture,” and has vowed to “remain strongly mobilised.” FEELING THE SQUEEZE The restructuring of the EU’s agriculture budget makes direct comparisons to the 2021-2027 period difficult — but analysis by Alan Matthews, professor emeritus of European agricultural policy at Trinity College Dublin, suggests the new plan represents a 15 percent reduction. And that’s before taking inflation into account. The new purse for the agricultural policy, commonly known as CAP, guarantees that around €300 billion will go into farmers’ pockets through various streams funded by the EU and co-financed by member countries. The burden of spending for things like climate incentives will be shared, while area-based support — paid out to farmers per hectare — will come from the EU’s coffers.   To deliver on promises to better target support for young or small farmers, European Agriculture Commissioner Christophe Hansen has large landowners in his sights. | Thierry Monasse/Getty Images Environmentalists worry that requiring member countries to chip in to unlock funding for climate-protection measures will deter their uptake, particularly given the overall budget reduction.  “If you tell me ‘more incentives and less rules,’ and you don’t provide me with a decent ring-fenced budget for those incentives to exist, you’re cutting rules and not providing incentives,” said Contiero. “And that’s the overall trap of this new proposal.” Similarly, young farmers are worried that their interests will fall by the wayside without a legally binding target for making sure they get their piece of the pie. Under the current CAP, 3 percent of funding goes to this group. In the fall, a 6 percent “aspirational” target will be announced — which leaves the European Council of Young Farmers unimpressed. An aspirational target in the context of a constrained budget means that its members “have to fight for money for young farmers, rather than what is now the case: that they have a certainty of 3 percent,” explained the organization’s president, Peter Meedendorp.  A Commission official familiar with the file, granted anonymity to speak candidly, dismissed those concerns, noting the legislation mandates member countries “shall” prioritize young farmers in their national plans, meaning they cannot be ignored. Nonetheless, the wine industry shares similar worries. Interventions to support the sector in the past had dedicated budgets. Now, such support is a single item on the list of  income-support measures member countries provide to farmers from the overall CAP pot.  “The Commission is sending the hot potato to member states,” said Ignacio Sánchez Recarte, secretary-general of the European Committee of Wine Companies. He argues that the plan risks damaging the level playing field and a bloc-wide approach to wine policy. ON THE DEFENSIVE To deliver on promises to better target support for young or small farmers, European Agriculture Commissioner Christophe Hansen has large landowners in his sights. Traditionally, large farms win out on CAP payments: The latest data suggests that 20 percent of CAP beneficiaries receive 80 percent of direct payments. Under the new proposal, member countries can choose to pay farmers an average of €130 to €240 per hectare — up to a limit of €100,000, with progressive reductions in payments to that point.  Jurgen Tack, secretary-general at the European Landowners’ Organization, said that this proposal to limit subsidies risks ignoring professional farmers, who contribute significantly to European food security, in favor of less profitable and productive enterprises. The new CAP budget is “exactly the opposite of what we should support. Because what we see is that it’s no longer productivity, it’s becoming more and more a social support to farms,” he argued.  Several environmental organizations support limiting payments to large farms to encourage fairer distribution of funds and to free up money for environmental projects. In response, Tack contended that profitability and sustainability go hand in hand: The more money a farm has, the more it can spend on sustainable practices at scale. That debate may be irrelevant, as several previous attempts by the Commission to introduce such limits to subsidies since the 1990s failed to overcome opposition from key EU countries dominated by large farms. The most recent attempt to introduce such limits only survived the legislative process as a voluntary measure.  Contiero of Greenpeace wasn’t optimistic over how proposals to limit subsidies to large farms will fare over the next two years of negotiations: “This will be subject to the European Parliament and Council chainsaw. Everyone is waiting to see how horrible that massacre will be.”

BRUSSELS — EU exporters of wine and spirits will be able to sell their booze in Indonesia — but the bloc wants to keep it quiet. After years of talks, the EU and Indonesia announced Tuesday morning that they’d concluded negotiations on a trade deal, and Jakarta agreed for the first time to open up its alcohol market to Europe. However, under pressure from negotiators in Indonesia — the world’s largest Muslim-majority country — Brussels has agreed not to make a fuss about it. There’s not a single mention of it in the Commission’s official communications on the deal. “We are not publicizing it too loudly because of the sensitivity for our partners,” a senior EU official told POLITICO. The official was granted anonymity to speak freely, as were others quoted in this piece. “You asked the question, so I’m answering — but we didn’t want this in the headlines.” Behind the scenes, EU negotiators describe a tense balancing act — securing commercial wins for European exporters while treading carefully around Indonesia’s strict cultural and religious stance on alcohol.  “Some delegates on the other side were like, ‘I’m risking my life doing this deal,’” said another EU official, describing how their counterparts asked to avoid publicizing the alcohol-related provisions and omit them completely in any form of communication. A QUIET UNCORKING The quotas are modest — 1,985 tonnes for wine and 400 tonnes for spirits — and come with a duty of 5 percent. But in a country where alcohol imports have long been taboo, even this incremental market access marks a symbolic shift. The deal was struck using tariff rate quotas (TRQs), which allow a fixed volume of goods to enter at lower tariffs, with higher rates of 90 percent on wine and 150 percent on spirits kicking in beyond that threshold. While the quotas themselves are small, they represent a long-sought entry point into Indonesia for European producers.  To further downplay the move, EU officials even opted to present the volumes in tonnes — rather than the more industry-standard hectolitres — in what one EU official said was a deliberate attempt to “keep the numbers looking smaller.” According to another EU official, Jakarta even offered to give the EU the booze quotas. “It’s a huge concession to get them from Indonesia, which never offered concessions on alcohol to any partner,” the official said. BOOZE AND BALI Indonesia has one of the lowest alcohol consumption levels in Southeast Asia — just 0.1 liters of pure alcohol per capita per year. Access to alcohol is highly restricted outside of major cities and tourist enclaves, and public sentiment on liberalization is overwhelmingly negative. But in Bali — the country’s most tourism-heavy province — demand for alcohol is anything but symbolic. With more than 1.53 million Australians visiting Indonesia in 2024 — up 17 percent from the previous year — European negotiators made a clear pitch: Target tourist hubs like Bali, where alcohol is already flowing, and supply them with European products. “We aim at targeting tourists there,” the first EU senior official said. The Indonesian embassy did not reply to a request for comment. The result of the agreement is a diplomatic sleight-of-hand: a win for European exporters — just not one Brussels is boasting about. But with exporters eyeing the opportunity, the bottle may be too open to cork back.

KYIV — The drone struck just after sunrise. Oleksandr Hordiienko, a 58-year-old farmer from Ukraine’s southern Kherson region, was driving across his war-scarred fields when the Russian munition slammed into his car. At his funeral in Odesa in early September, mourners called him “the farmer with a shotgun,” a defiant hero who resisted occupation for three years. He cleared thousands of mines from the 1,000 hectares his cooperative shared with a dozen other farmers and patrolled the skies with a Turkish shotgun and jerry-rigged electronics to protect his workers from drones. For Ukraine’s farmers, his death symbolized the resilience of the men and women who continue to produce grain, milk and potatoes under fire. For Europe it was a reminder that the “Ukrainian farmer” is not just an agribusiness boss controlling vast swathes of land, but also includes men like Hordiienko, fighting to protect their land with a shotgun. Across the EU, such nuance is often lost. Hostility to Ukraine’s mega farms and their ability to drown Europe in highly competitive exports has often shifted the bloc’s politics against Kyiv, despite the war. Ukraine’s vast expanses of highly fertile “black earth” have long made it the “breadbasket of Europe” — something many in the EU see as a threat. In Poland, farmers’ border blockades over Ukrainian grain imports have soured public opinion on Kyiv’s war efforts. In Hungary, ministers have cast Ukraine’s accession to the bloc as a threat to EU farm subsidies, warning that money meant for European farmers risks being siphoned away. And in France, President Emmanuel Macron moved last year to join Poland in pushing for tighter quotas on Ukrainian cereals to appease his own restive farmers. Behind all of this looms the image of Ukrainian farm giants and oligarch-owned holdings — MHP, Kernel, UkrLandFarming — that are big enough to rival the agri powerhouses of Brazil or Argentina. These few dozen companies dominate Ukraine’s exports and have become the face of the country’s agriculture in Europe, looming as an existential threat at the border. The reality on the ground in Ukraine is more complex, and includes tens of thousands of smaller commercial farms and millions of households who have kept the country fed throughout the war. LEAVING WAS NOT AN OPTION Akhmil Alkhadzhi, whose father came from Syria, runs a family company that cultivates 3,500 hectares. In Europe that would be a mega-farm; in Ukraine, it’s considered middling. He built it from scratch, starting with just 20 hectares in the 1990s and expanding steadily with his wife. When Russia invaded, wheat prices collapsed to $70 a ton from $250 to $300 before the war, and sunflower seeds plunged to barely $110 per ton from about $600 to $650. To keep the business alive, Alkhadzhi sold his apartment abroad. “We stayed without an apartment, but with a business,” he said. He employs 60 workers — “that’s 300 or 400 lives depending on us.” Hostility to Ukraine’s mega farms and their ability to drown Europe in highly competitive exports has often shifted the bloc’s politics against Kyiv, despite the war. | Sergei Supinsky/AFP via Getty Images The war was only part of the challenge. Droughts have cut his wheat yields from 6 or 7 tons to just 2 tons per hectare, and with banks demanding interest rates of over 20 percent he has had to improvise, renting low-till machinery to conserve water before scraping together enough to upgrade. Climate change is pushing him toward sustainability choices even without EU rules.  Yet leaving was never an option. “Three days before the war, my family said if Russians come close, we will go. But when it started, no one left. We stayed. We were more needed here.” CHAMPAGNE AND COMBINE HARVESTERS A day before Hordiienko’s death, Alkhadzhi found himself among the guests at a very different kind of gathering. At an elite yacht club on the southern edge of Kyiv, prosecco sprayed from a fountain as a live band played pop classics. European diplomats mingled with Ukrainian ministry officials and the owners of some of the country’s largest farms. This was a reception hosted by UCAB, Ukraine’s biggest agribusiness lobby, providing a gilded day of meaty dishes, strong spirits and relentless networking. The spectacle was as much about politics as farming, a show of survival, clout and ambition after three years of war. Even Ukraine’s agri barons have been battered, losing swathes of leased land and infrastructure to occupation and bombardment. Yet they remain global players, with balance sheets and export volumes big enough to compete on world markets. What many farmers in Poland or France fear is the scale of these companies and the possibility that Ukrainian grain or poultry could undercut them. Anton Zhemerdeev, a brisk, fresh-faced manager at TAS Agro, shrugged when asked about those fears. His company controls 80,000 hectares across five Ukrainian regions — a number so outlandish in EU terms that it borders on science fiction. The average European farm is just 17 hectares. “Eighty thousand hectares is big, yes,” he said with a grin, “but we don’t sell everything to Europe.” Much of TAS Agro’s grain heads to Asia and the Middle East. The EU, he argued, is just one market among many. But unlike Asia, it is also a political one, with borders that can slam shut overnight and quotas that shift with the political winds.  When Poland closed its border in 2023, Ukraine’s harvest was redirected to the Romanian port of Constanța instead. “Poland missed the chance to modernize. Romania took it,” he said, referring to investments in ports and railways that captured the trade. Another producer at the yacht club, Ihor Shyliuk, whose Cygnet Agrocompany runs 30,000 hectares and a sugar factory in western Ukraine, fumed at the European Commission’s tight quotas. Serbia, he noted, enjoys bigger export allowances to the EU than does Ukraine, even though it’s a fraction of its size. “Why is our sugar quota smaller than Moldova’s?” he also asked. “Politics, not economics.” Those quotas are due to improve under a deal struck between the Commission and Kyiv over the summer, though Shyliuk remained skeptical, arguing that politics will continue to outweigh economics in the EU’s farm trade. The presence of these giants and medium-sized players is exactly what makes Ukraine’s EU bid so sensitive. In Poland, farmers’ border blockades over Ukrainian grain imports have soured public opinion on Kyiv’s war efforts. | Andriy Andriyenko/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images Kyiv formally applied for EU membership days after Russia launched its full-scale invasion in 2022, and has since begun accession talks that promise to be lengthy and fraught. Agriculture looms especially large because farm products are one of Ukraine’s biggest exports and trade in them is already a contentious issue, pitting Kyiv against the EU’s powerful farm lobbies and the national governments that back them. OVERLOOKED MILLIONS Step away from the yacht club and the massive combine harvesters, however, and yet another Ukraine comes into view. Alongside Ukraine’s farm giants are tens of thousands of registered family farms, typically 50–100 hectares in size, selling into domestic markets and anchoring local rural economies. Nearly 4 million households also work the land, cultivating over 6 million hectares. Many tend only a hectare or two, but together they produce 95 percent of the country’s potatoes, 85 percent of its vegetables, 80 percent of its fruit and berries and three-quarters of its milk. Together, these farms and plots are the backbone of Ukraine’s food security, yet they are often invisible in the debate. During the war, many families have relied almost entirely on their own milk, potatoes and chickens. For some, farming is not just a business, but a lifeline. That lopsided map of Ukraine’s agriculture — comprising towering agriholdings at one end and millions of smaller farms and household plots at the other— was drawn long before the war. It’s the legacy of Soviet collectivization and the land reforms that followed, a process that left families with small parcels and allowed companies to lease and consolidate those remnants into today’s sprawling estates. The top 10 holdings each control hundreds of thousands of hectares. But without the smallholders, Ukraine’s villages would have starved long ago. The debate in Brussels often overlooks this complexity, even if the fears of European farmers about the overall size of Ukraine are not unfounded. Ukraine’s largest farms operate on a scale incomprehensible in Europe, with vertical integration and global reach. Their land runs into the hundreds of thousands of hectares. They can produce wheat cheaper than anyone in the EU. Corruption scandals have fed suspicions, from ministers accused of seizing state land to regional officials caught taking bribes for quarantine certificates. But the fixation on oligarchs obscures a more complicated reality. The debate in Brussels reduces Ukraine to a threat — vast, deregulated, and impossible to absorb without crushing EU farmers. Yet for every holding with a yacht club cocktail reception, there are thousands of family farms adapting to EU rules, millions of households growing potatoes in backyards, and many farmers like Hordiienko, fighting and dying in the fields. The war has also nudged Ukraine’s farm economy to adapt. With ports under attack and borders often restricted, producers are putting more focus on processed goods such as sunflower oil, poultry and sugar, which already make up nearly half of agri-food exports. For Zhemerdeev of TAS Agro, even 80,000 hectares is just one part of a bigger picture. What matters, he insisted, is that Ukraine’s fields are not just symbols of geopolitical competition. They are home to people — some rich, some struggling, some heroic — all bound by the same stubborn conviction: “The land is worth fighting for.”

PARIS — In France, getting rid of governments is now about as commonplace as complaining about them. François Bayrou is bracing to become the latest prime minister to get the chop on Monday ― primarily because of discontent over his spending plans for next year ― leaving President Emmanuel Macron on the hunt for a fifth PM in less than two years. The political crisis could have ramifications far beyond the halls of power in Paris if lawmakers can’t figure out how to rein in runaway public spending and a massive budget deficit. Here’s everything you need to know about the drama ahead: HE’S DEFINITELY GOING, RIGHT? Yes, it’s pretty much nailed on that Bayrou will fall. Anything else would need a last-minute U-turn from a big chunk of opposition lawmakers, and that would be a massive shock. His fate seem sealed in the hours after he unveiled his plan for a confidence vote late last month, when leaders from the far-left France Unbowed, far-right National Rally and center-left Socialist Party all announced they would vote to bring down the government. Neither Bayrou’s PR blitz nor his meetings with political leaders last week appear to have moved the needle. SO WHAT’S HAPPENING MONDAY? Bayrou is delivering what’s known as a d´eclaration de politique générale (general policy statement), a speech traditionally given at the outset of a prime minister’s tenure to lay out an incoming government’s platform and priorities. (It’s a bit like a state of the union.) The longtime centrist is using this one to make the case for his unpopular 2026 budget. Prime ministers often follow their addresses with a confidence vote to ensure support for their agendas, though they aren’t constitutionally obliged to do so. Bayrou didn’t hold a vote after his January DPG, nor did any of his predecessors during Macron’s second term. Christophe Petit Tesson/EPA This time, he will. Bayrou has tried to frame the vote as a referendum on the need for drastic action to balance the books and has quibbled with the French media’s framing of Monday’s drama as a confidence vote or censure. But in practice, that’s what it is. HOW WILL THE DAY UNFOLD? Bayrou’s speech will begin at 3 p.m. in the National Assembly in Paris, France’s more-powerful lower house of parliament. Representatives from each political party will follow, with each of their speaking times determined by how many seats they have. Then the prime minister will have the opportunity to deliver closing remarks. Voting should take place around 7 p.m. or 8 p.m. and should last about 30 minutes, after which the president of the National Assembly will announce the results. Macron’s office has not yet said whether he will speak following the vote. When ex-Prime Minister Michel Barnier was toppled in December, Macron waited 24 hours to deliver a primetime address. HOW DID WE GET HERE? Let’s rewind to June 9, 2024, when the far-right National Rally scored a huge win in the European election. Macron responded by dissolving parliament, a massive bet that backfired in spectacular fashion. In the ensuing vote, an alliance of left-leaning political parties won more seats than any other political force, but fell short of an absolute majority. After nearly two months without a proper government, Macron’s centrists and the center-right conservatives agreed to form a minority coalition led by former Brexit negotiator Barnier. Barnier lasted three months, taken down in December over his plan to trim the 2025 budget to help rein in runaway public spending. Macron replaced Barnier with Bayrou, who in July presented a plan to squeeze next year’s budget by €43.8 billion to get the budget deficit down from a projected 5.4 percent of gross domestic product this year to 4.6 percent of GDP in 2026. Opposition lawmakers howled in fury at the plan, which included axing two public holidays. In late August, as the French started to trickle back from their summer vacations, Bayrou stunned the country by announcing that he would hold a confidence vote on his spending plans before what were expected to be tense negotiations. SHOULD I CARE? Yes, because the ensuing crisis in the eurozone’s second-biggest economy could drag the entire bloc into a debt-fueled financial crisis, according to Bayrou. France was able to stave off an economic catastrophe during the pandemic and when energy prices shot up at the outset of the full-scale war in Ukraine, in part thanks to massive public spending. Finding a consensus on reining in expenditures has proven difficult, and lawmakers are loath to tighten their belts as aggressively as Bayrou wants. His plan would bring France’s budget deficit down from a projected 5.6 percent of GDP this year to 4.6 percent in 2026. The ultimate goal is to bring that figure down to 3 percent, as required by EU rules, by 2029. Financial institutions and rating agencies have repeatedly warned of consequences should France fail to act, some of which are no longer hypothetical. Borrowing costs are rising, with the yield on France’s benchmark 10-year bonds ― a useful indicator of faith in a country’s finances ― drifting away from historically safe Germany’s yields and toward those of Italy, a country long synonymous with reckless spending and unsustainable debt.   Getting the French to tighten their belts has so far proven to be Mission Impossible, but the situation is not yet so dire that it’s time to call in the IMF. Bayrou, however, is betting his political future that history will prove him right.

The European Union and the United States have issued a statement to formalize their tariff truce. Now the hard work begins. The framework agreement builds out the handshake trade agreement struck by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and U.S. President Donald Trump in Scotland in late July. The text sets out a roadmap for implementing the trade commitments they made. “This is not the end; it’s the beginning. This framework is a first step,” EU Trade Commissioner Maroš Šefcovič said. But the document, which runs to only four pages, skirts several issues. For one, it doesn’t mention U.S. calls for the EU to dilute its regulation of Big Tech. Nor does it refer to a call by Brussels for European wines and spirits to be exempted from the 15 percent U.S. baseline tariff that took effect this month. That’s one that Šefcovič still hopes to get a deal on. We break down the wins, the losses, the fudges — and the omissions — from the Framework on an Agreement on Reciprocal, Fair, and Balanced Trade. CARS  Under the joint statement, the U.S. will lower its 27.5 percent tariffs on cars and automotive parts to match the baseline 15 percent.  But there’s a catch: The U.S. will only meet its lower tariff commitment after the EU eliminates “tariffs on all U.S. industrial goods,” including its own 10 percent tariff on vehicles. Šefčovič said the Commission will initiate legislation this month to ensure Washington lowers tariffs retroactively on cars and auto parts effective Aug. 1, as foreseen in the deal. A separate clause of the joint statement makes clear that the two governments will start collaborating in other areas around cars, including to “provide mutual recognition on each other’s standards.”  The joint statement doesn’t clarify which standards will be mutually recognized, but any change will have ripple effects across the sector. “By signing up to mutual recognition of vehicle standards with the United States, the European Union has waved the white flag on road safety,” said Antonio Avenoso, executive director of the European Transport Safety Council. “This is not a technical detail — it is a political choice that puts trade convenience ahead of saving lives.” — Jordyn Dahl DRUGS, SEMICONDUCTORS, STEEL These industries are at the heart of Washington’s efforts to relocate industry back to the United States and are covered by separate trade investigations, known as Section 232, which allow the U.S. president to restrict imports to protect national security.  The U.S. will cap tariffs on European pharmaceuticals, lumber and semiconductors at 15 percent regardless of the results of the ongoing investigations.  Steel and aluminum imports will continue to face a 50 percent tariff until the EU and the U.S. explore the possibility of joining forces to tackle overproduction. | Erik S. Lesser/EPA This ceiling doesn’t apply to steel and aluminum imports, however, which will continue to face a 50 percent tariff until the EU and the U.S. explore the possibility of joining forces to tackle overproduction — especially coming from China — and the possibility of setting tariff-rate quotas. The European pharmaceuticals industry warns that the outline trade deal could cost companies up to €18 billion. “We remain concerned for the future of patients and our sector in Europe,” said Nathalie Moll, director general at Europe’s EFPIA pharma lobby. Still, while branded pharmaceuticals could end up being subject to the tariffs, the EU did succeed in broadening an exemption for lower-priced generics. — Camille Gijs and Mari Eccles DIGITAL RULES  The European Union managed to keep its rules on digital competition and content moderation out of the U.S. trade deal, despite heavy pressure. For now.  The Commission has for months maintained that its ability to regulate U.S. Big Tech companies is not part of the trade negotiations.  The Trump administration has been on a campaign, attacking both rulebooks and claiming they amount to censorship of Americans (the Digital Services Act) and unfairly target U.S. companies (the Digital Markets Act). While Šefčovič confirmed to reporters on Thursday that the rules weren’t part of the talks, he didn’t rule out that the two sides would return to the issue in the future.  “We kept these issues out of the trade negotiations. We were focusing on what was very clearly the priority and therefore you won’t find it referenced in the joint statement,” he said. “Will it come later, will it be discussed? Our relationship is so vast that for sure there will be a lot of issues which will be discussed.” European Parliament lawmakers will continue to pressure the Commission not to treat the rules as a bargaining chip. “Tech legislation and tariffs are two distinct matters and should remain such,” said Bulgarian conservative lawmaker Eva Maydell. — Pieter Haeck WINES AND SPIRITS Wines and spirits won’t be exempted from tariffs, even though the European Union pushed hard to obtain relief for a sector that has been caught in the crossfire from both Washington and Beijing. This means they will be subject to a 15 percent U.S. tariff.  That’s a blow for European exporters, who long benefited from tariff-free access on most spirits until successive trade wars tore it up. Wines and spirits won’t be exempted from tariffs, even though the European Union pushed hard to obtain relief for a sector that has been caught in the crossfire from both Washington and Beijing. | Guillaume Horcajuelo/EPA Šefčovič admitted that the talks had fallen short — but insisted the fight isn’t over.  “The tariffs on wine and spirits was one of the very important offensive interests of the European Union. Unfortunately, here we didn’t succeed … but the doors are not closed forever,” he told reporters.  — Bartosz Brzeziński GREEN RULES  The EU made a vague promise to address U.S. concerns regarding EU laws on mandatory sustainability reporting (the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive), supply chain oversight (the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive) and deforestation (the EU Deforestation Regulation). Brussels mainly pitched ideas it already wants to implement, however.   The EU will ensure its rules “do not pose undue restrictions on transatlantic trade” by reducing the administrative burden on businesses in the CSDDD and by proposing changes to the EU’s civil liability regime, which holds companies legally accountable for human rights violations and environmental damage in their supply chains.   Scrapping the EU’s liability regime is already a major point in the Commission’s omnibus proposal announced last February, which rolls back many features of the CSRD and CSDDD among other files.  Crucially, those changes have not yet received the official green light from EU countries or lawmakers.   On deforestation, the EU says it recognizes that U.S. commodities production “poses negligible risk to global deforestation,” having already labeled the country as “low risk” in its classification system last May.  — Marianne Gros AVIATION Washington commits to exempting aircraft and parts from higher tariffs, applying its very low most favored nation duties to the industry. Irish lobbyists are breathing a collective sigh of relief. A trade war slapping American tariffs on Airbus and European tariffs on Boeing would have hit the industry’s key middleman, Dublin, particularly hard. The Irish capital is the world’s biggest hub for aircraft leasing with an ecosystem of lessors and financial advisers overseeing most of the world’s leased aircraft. Ireland’s Central Statistics Office values that Irish-managed fleet at €268 billion.  Small wonder, then, that Prime Minister Micheál Martin singled out aviation when welcoming the newly published details of the EU-U.S. agreement. “Given the significance of the airline sector to Ireland, a specific carve-out for aircraft and aircraft parts is welcome,” he said. — Shawn Pogatchnik DEFENSE  The EU promised to buy more American weapons under Thursday’s trade deal, although a senior official downplayed any impact on efforts to boost Europe’s military industrial complex. The EU “plans to substantially increase procurement of military and defence equipment from the United States, with the support and facilitation of the U.S. government,” the joint statement said.  That could deal a blow to the European defense industry, which Brussels has been trying to strengthen with initiatives like the €150 billion loans-for-weapons Security Action for Europe regulation to boost joint procurement, or the €1.5 billion European Defence Industry Programme still under discussion with the European Parliament. — Jacopo Barigazzi INVESTMENTS Although it’s unclear how exactly it will fulfill its promises, the EU “intends to” procure $750 billion worth of U.S. energy, including liquefied natural gas, oil and nuclear energy products, through 2028.  It will also buy “at least” $40 billion worth of U.S. artificial intelligence chips. Europe already relies heavily on U.S.-based AI chip suppliers such as Nvidia, since it has no own-production capacity in that space.  On top of that, “European companies are expected to invest an additional $600 billion across strategic sectors in the United States through 2028,” the document adds. — Camille Gijs and Pieter Haeck

The trade deal struck by U.S. President Donald Trump and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Sunday at his Scottish golf resort was hugely one-sided. The European Union faces the pain of 15 percent U.S. tariffs on most of its exports — and the bloc has had to make telephone-number-sized financial commitments both to import energy from the United States and to invest there. However, from the powerful German auto industry to the European aviation and semiconductor sectors, there are some winners from the outline accord — which has yet to be finalized in writing.  POLITICO’s reporting team breaks down what we know so far: Energy Autos Aviation Pharmaceuticals Technology Digital regulation Defense Steel Food and drink Investment ENERGY  What’s in the deal? As part of the agreement, Trump and von der Leyen agreed that the EU would purchase $750 billion of oil and liquefied natural gas from the U.S. — a figure that would also include other energy products such as nuclear fuel. That means $250 billion in new energy purchases each year, which the Commission chief said would also help end the EU’s remaining reliance on Russian imports. Who wins, who loses? In theory, the deal is a huge win for U.S. oil and gas firms. In practice, experts say it’s unworkable. For starters, hitting that target would require the EU to triple its U.S. energy imports, based on last year’s figures, while asking American firms to divert all their energy flows worldwide toward the bloc — and then some. In comparison, Russia’s total energy sales to the EU totaled just €23 billion last year. Brussels also has limited tools to make that all happen: Imports are firmly in the hands of private firms. By Victor Jack back to the top AUTOS  What’s in the deal? U.S. tariffs on cars and auto parts are being reduced to the baseline 15 percent — a level that matches the deal notched earlier this month by Japanese automakers. In exchange, the EU has agreed to lower its car tariffs from 10 percent to zero, trade spokesperson Olof Gill said. The devil is in the details, however, which remain sparse. Under the U.S.-Japan deal, the Asian country will take vehicles approved to U.S. automotive standards. A senior Commission official said the EU deal includes “a commitment to work together … to see where standards are already aligned or where we need to work more closely to align them in the future.” As POLITICO scooped, the executive previously floated the idea of matching U.S. autonomous driving standards, which was mentioned in Monday’s technical briefing as a possibility. Who wins, who loses? According to the German car lobby, this is a bad deal that will continue to burden the sector. It joined the American auto sector in decrying tariffs on cars and parts produced in Mexico, which remain at the higher 25 percent. The real loser is not the automakers, though, but their workers, according to Ferdinand Dudenhöffer, the director of Germany’s Center Automotive Research. He estimates that up to 70,000 jobs across European car companies and their suppliers could be lost as automakers move production to the U.S. to skirt the 15 percent tariff. By Jordyn Dahl back to the top AVIATION What’s in the deal? The EU-U.S. zero-for-zero tariffs deal on “all aircraft and component parts,” announced by von der Leyen, allows both plane makers and airlines to breathe a sigh of relief. The global supply chain that lies behind every aircraft makes this sector more vulnerable to trade barriers than others. Following the 17-year dispute between Airbus and Boeing that concluded in 2021, neither the European nor the American industries were interested in entering a new trade war involving aviation. Who wins, who loses? Although Boeing may have benefited from tariffs on its competitor Airbus in the short term, analysts note that the U.S. aircraft manufacturer would suffer more under EU retaliation. Instead, some U.S. airlines operating an Airbus fleet, such as Delta Air Lines and Spirit Airlines, would have immediately felt the impact of tariffs on their European suppliers. Among the losers of the zero-for-zero tariff are leasing companies on both sides of the Atlantic, which — if tit-for-tat tariffs had been introduced — would have been the tool used by airlines to avoid the extra charges. By Tommaso Lecca back to the top PHARMACEUTICALS What’s in the deal? Trump and von der Leyen flatly contradicted each other on Sunday, with the U.S. president saying the trade deal didn’t include pharmaceuticals — and the Commission chief saying it did. Commission officials clarified on Monday that the rate remains at zero for now. But Brussels is expecting a top tariff rate of 15 percent to take effect once the U.S. administration’s Section 232 investigation into the sector — under which tariffs can be imposed for reasons of national security — is complete. There are some exemptions for “certain generics,” von der Leyen said, although it’s not clear yet which. Who wins, who loses? Generics companies — those that make the cheapest drugs of all — say they have the most to lose because of their small margins, even if the eventual tariff rate is significantly lower than the 200 percent Trump had threatened a few weeks ago. Industry association Medicines for Europe wants more clarity on which drugs would see zero tariffs applied, and is pushing the EU and the U.S. to “expand the tariff-free list of medicines as widely as possible.” Pharma company Merck said it welcomed the fact that a deal has at least been made, while in Ireland — which is particularly exposed because of its huge pharma sector — business association Ibec said Europe had “capitulated.” By Mari Eccles back to the top TECHNOLOGY What’s in the deal? Sunday’s deal included chip equipment as one of the sectors that received a zero-for-zero tariff, meaning it’s exempt from the baseline 15 percent tariff. Von der Leyen underlined that the EU is and would remain a prominent buyer of American artificial intelligence chips. “U.S. AI chips will help power our AI gigafactories and help the U.S. to maintain their technological edge,” she said. Who wins, who loses? The zero-for-zero tariff was widely seen as a win for Dutch chip printing machine maker ASML, one of Europe’s largest firms by market capitalization. The machines that ASML ships are worth hundreds of millions of euros apiece. ASML didn’t commit to growth this year in mid-July amid the tariff uncertainty, but its stock gained 4 percent on Monday. Von der Leyen’s commitment to buy U.S. AI chips is a setback, though, for proponents of a more technologically sovereign Europe — since continuing to buy them prolongs the bloc’s reliance on U.S. tech.  By Pieter Haeck back to the top DIGITAL REGULATION What’s in the deal? Nothing. The Commission called the Trump administration’s bluff on its attempt to bend the EU’s rules — and for the time being it has paid off. “There is absolutely no commitment on digital regulation, nor on digital taxes,” said a senior EU official, adding that the Commission’s defense of the bloc’s regulator autonomy hadn’t received enough attention. Who wins, who loses? The EU’s digital rulebook — and in particular the Digital Markets Act and the Digital Services Act — has emerged unscathed. That wasn’t for a lack of pressure on the U.S. side, with Big Tech players like Meta and Apple becoming increasingly outspoken over the DMA. They are keeping up the pressure — the Computer & Communications Industry Association tech lobby group has just published a study that pegged the cost and lost revenues of the EU’s digital rules at $97.6 billion annually, including roughly $1 billion in DMA compliance costs alone. By Jacob Parry back to the top DEFENSE  What’s in the deal? Trump touted the purchase of “vast amounts” of U.S. military equipment — but senior EU officials pushed back, stressing that arms procurement was not negotiated as part of the agreement. “Arms procurement is not a matter for the Commission,” one official said, adding it “was not calculated in any way into the figures we talked about.” In short: There is no formal commitment to buy U.S. weapons. Who wins, who loses? The U.S. defense industry didn’t score a guaranteed win — but it may still benefit. EU officials acknowledged that Europe’s rising military budgets could favor American firms. “On the back of the NATO summit in The Hague, there is, of course, an understanding that our member states, with the Commission’s very active support, are increasing defense spending, and therefore that will directly or indirectly benefit the United States,” one official said. That dynamic could leave European defense firms uneasy as procurement decisions ramp up. By Chris Lunday back to the top STEEL What’s in the deal? Apparently, a return to quotas that sound pretty similar to the ones under the Biden administration. Above that, the 50 percent tariff would (most likely) remain in place. An EU official said on Monday that the level of the quotas themselves has not yet been negotiated. This will need more time than is available before Aug. 1. On top of that, the U.S. somewhat acknowledges that the EU is not the problem when it comes to global excess production of steel and aluminum. Brussels and Washington will discuss a “ring fence” to isolate themselves from that unfairly made steel from China, Indonesia, Egypt, Turkey and a host of others. Who wins, who loses? If the European steel industry can — at least to some degree — keep sending specialized products to the U.S., it will prefer that over a blanket 50 percent tariff. The real loser here might be China, however. If the U.S and EU indeed manage to build a steel wall around their markets — which would be a big if considering the U.S. lack of emissions trading — the Chinese strategy might actually see some serious counterweight. By Koen Verhelst  back to the top FOOD AND DRINK What’s in the deal? Certain agricultural products could enjoy a zero-to-zero tariff relationship with the U.S., von der Leyen told reporters, but the Commission president did not specify which goods these would be. The latest, from a senior Commission official, is that the EU will lower tariffs on what they consider “non-sensitive” agricultural goods from the United States, while “sensitive” agricultural imports will continue to face the current rates. Who wins, who loses? It’s too early to say. Hints are that U.S. nuts, pet food and bison could face easier entry into EU markets as “non-sensitive” agricultural goods, while U.S. beef — considered “sensitive” — will continue to face tariffs. However, negotiators are still negotiating over zero-to-zero tariffs and determining the placement of key agri-food goods, including spirits and wine, within the overall deal agreed by the leaders.  By Lucia Mackenzie back to the top INVESTMENT What’s in the deal? A commitment by EU companies to invest an additional $600 billion in the U.S. Far from a major concession to Trump, the pledge appears to amount to little more than window dressing. “It’s largely performative,” said Nils Redeker from the Jacques Delors Centre think tank. Brussels, in fact, won’t have the power to deliver on this promise, as the investments would come exclusively from the private sector, two senior Commission officials said. One said the figure was “based on detailed discussions with different business associations and companies in order to see what their investment intentions are.” Who wins, who loses? Extra investments from Europe are likely to boost the U.S. economy. However, it’s too early to say whether this additional funding will come at the expense of investments within Europe, which would dent EU growth.  By Gregorio Sorgi