EU officials warn ‘a deal is a deal’ after Trump hikes global tariffs to 15%

“As the United States' largest trading partner, the EU expects the US to honour its commitments set out in the Joint Statement - just as the EU stands by its commitments," the EU Commission insisted in a statement.

The European Parliament is being urged by some lawmakers to delay a scheduled vote on the agreement, calling the situation “pure tariff chaos” and arguing that the terms and legal foundation have changed.  

European officials have also begun to point to their own toolkit. The Financial Times reports that France’s trade minister has highlighted the EU’s Anti‑Coercion Instrument and a sizeable package of potential retaliatory tariffs that could be activated if Brussels judges the US to be breaching its commitments.  

European Central Bank president Christine Lagarde has emerged as one of the clearest voices linking the tariff shock to broader macro risks. In an interview on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” Lagarde said recent US moves threaten the “equilibrium” forged by last year’s trade arrangement and could become a fresh headwind for both economies.  

For equity and multi‑asset portfolios, the combination of a hard tariff deadline, possible EU retaliation, and lingering legal overhang raises the odds of repeated bursts of volatility rather than a single, one‑off adjustment.