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‘Dark day for Europe’: Trade deal with US sparks fury

Monday, 28 July 2025 10:45 AM [ Last Update: Monday, 28 July 2025 11:13 AM ]

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen sits with US President Donald Trump after the announcement of a trade deal in Turnberry, Scotland, on July 27, 2025. (Photo by Reuters)

French and Hungarian leaders have strongly denounced a new trade agreement between the US and the EU, calling it a humiliating concession to Washington and a blow to European sovereignty.

French Prime Minister François Bayrou described the accord—reached Sunday by US President Donald Trump and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen—as a “dark day” for Europe.

“It is a dark day when an alliance of free peoples, united to affirm their values and defend their interests, resorts to submission,” Bayrou said in a post on X.

The deal imposes a baseline 15% tariff on EU exports to the United States, averting a deeper trade conflict but triggering political outrage in France.

President Emmanuel Macron has so far remained silent on the matter, but lawmakers from across the political spectrum have expressed fury.

Jordan Bardella, leader of the far-right National Rally, said von der Leyen had overseen the “commercial surrender of Europe” to Washington.

Marine Le Pen called the deal a “political, economic, and moral fiasco.”

Even Macron’s allies in parliament criticized the agreement. Pieyre-Alexandre Anglade, head of the National Assembly's European Affairs Committee, said the deal sends “a signal of weakness to our competitors” and called on EU leaders to reverse course.

Philippe Latombe, a member of Bayrou’s Democratic Movement party, said the EU had paid a high price to avoid a trade war.

“It comes at the cost of culpable subservience and the sacrifice of entire sectors of our sovereignty,” he said.

US-EU trade war temporarily averted with 15% tariff deal amid ‘imbalance’ criticism

The United States and European Union reached a deal to impose 15% tariffs, temporarily averting a trade war.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban echoed the criticism, mockingly claiming that US President Trump had “eaten von der Leyen for breakfast.”

Speaking in a livestream, Orban compared the deal unfavorably to the earlier UK-US agreement, calling the EU’s terms “less advantageous.”

Orban criticized von der Leyen as a weak negotiator and warned the deal would harm Hungary’s export-driven economy, especially in the automobile and pharmaceutical sectors.

While EU officials defended the deal as a way to restore trade stability, many across Europe view it as further evidence of the EU’s growing dependence on Washington.

The backlash underscores rising divisions within the EU, with increasing calls for the bloc to reassess its economic and geopolitical alignment with the United States.

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