With Commission President Ursula von der Leyen having signed one of the worst trade deals I have ever seen, I sat down with Dave Keating from Gulf Stream Blues to dig into the EU’s latest “deal” with the US, and discussed why it’s absolutely not an FTA, no matter how it’s being spun.
We go over:
* What’s actually in the deal (spoiler: not much) and why calling it a “trade agreement” is misleading.
* How US and EU interpretations are already diverging – with clear lessons from the UK’s post-Brexit experience.
* Why the EU went along with it, what the real alternatives were, and the quiet but decisive role of Ursula von der Leyen (she could have led a resistance to this capitulation consensus … and didn’t).
* Which countries pushed for this surrender (hello, Germany and Italy), Bayrou’s sharp comments from France, and whether Paris or the European Parliament could still block it.
* And finally, the important question: does this deal permanently lock the EU into a position of subservience, or is there a way back?
