European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said EU is opening the door for Canada to become the first associate member of the 27-member bloc.
Trump threatened to impose tariffs on the European Union or halt trade with the bloc entirely if it proceeds with the plan.
The proposal signals a significant shift in the EU, which had been lukewarm to Germany’s proposal in May of an associate membership for Ukraine.
Everyone. The US is a huge and important market and will remain so for the foreseeable future. Let’s not be delusional.
I expect companies will see trading with the US as more of a risk now, and take measures like requiring a premium, but trade with the US will continue, just by the sheer size of the US market.
Absolutely.
Continuity is extremely important in trade relations. If I plan to tie my economy to yours I want to be certain that the rules of those ties won’t suddenly change. That’s not the case with the USA anymore; that’s one side of the coin.
The other side is that the USA are a big market that has, until recently, been fairly reliable. There’s a lot of money to be made by dealing with them and there are a lot of established relations that would be expensive to change. In some cases companies can’t even pivot to other markets as their business is too specific.
So trade will continue but the States are no longer guaranteed to be the preferred partner. Especially when making new trade deals the USA no longer get the benefit of goodwill. Previously they could argue that signing a deal with them meant decades of reliable access to a large, stable, and prosperous market and that a few unfavorable tradeoffs are worth it. Now they can’t even guarantee that the deal won’t be unilaterally canceled within months or that their market has much purchasing capacity. As a result everyone else is much more inclined to seek alternate trade deals and play hardball when the USA come to negotiate.