On 20 May, the European Parliament and Council of the EU reached a provisional agreement on the EU-US Turnberry trade deal signed in July 2025, after an unsuccessful round of trilogue negotiations earlier this month. Reaching an agreement had become an increasingly pressing issue for the EU, as US President Donald Trump had set a deadline to 4 July and had started threatening to raise US tariffs on EU cars and trucks from 15% to 25%, after accusing the EU of delaying the deal’s finalisation. As a reminder, the deal allows the EU to scrap tariffs on US industrial and some farm goods, while the United States will cap tariffs on most European exports at 15%, and commits the Union to importing $750 billion worth of LNG over three years.

Throughout the interinstitutional negotiations, the main points of contention concerned the “sunrise” and “sunset” clauses. While MEPs backed the introduction of safeguard measures, the Commission and Member States worried such rules could be considered too hostile by the US. In the end, lawmakers decided to strengthen the deal’s suspension clause in the instance where the US would ramp up tariffs, and to limit it in time. Currently, the regulation should cease to apply at the end of 2029 unless the agreement is renewed or prolonged. 

In addition, the regulation introduces a safeguard mechanism, ensuring investigations in the case of increases in imports which are suspected to harm EU industries. Besides, the European Commission will be tasked with regular monitoring of the trade measure’s economic effects, and will need to update the European Parliament and Council six months after the deal’s entry into force and every three months thereafter of potential changes in trade volumes or values of US or EU exports. 

However, language to suspend the Turnberry agreement in case the United States threatens the EU’s territorial sovereignty, which had been requested by the European Parliament after Trump had threatened to annex Greenland, was not included in the final version of the text, due to EU Member States’ desire to exclude non-trade elements from the deal. MEPs also failed to secure the “sunrise clause”, which would have made the trade agreement conditional on the US lifting tariffs on steel and aluminium, despite such tariffs having been raised as high as 50% in the past year, which many EU lawmakers considered as a violation of the deal. Still, the EU Commission will be able to suspend tariff preferences for the US if it continues to apply a tariff rate higher than 15% on EU steel and aluminium derivatives by the end of the year.

The final version of the deal does not bring changes to the initial agreement, which should see the EU importing $250 billion of LNG annually for three years, which observers fear may lock  the bloc into a renewed fossil fuel dependence, thereby threatening the EU’s energy security and clean transition goals.

An extraordinary meeting of the European Parliament’s Trade committee will allow MEPs to vote on the agreement, likely on 2 June. Following this, the file will then be tabled for a vote at the next Parliament plenary from 15 to 18 June, with the Council then set to approve the agreed text as well. In this context, EERA will continue to monitor the relevant geopolitical developments and their implications for EU competitiveness, energy security and independence, as well as the clean energy transition.