Trump promises a trade deal with Europe

 

Trump promises a trade deal with Europe

 

“They want to make one very much,” the president said.

 

By Eli Stokols

04/17/2025 12:40 PM EDT

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/04/17/trump-promises-a-trade-deal-with-europe-00296112

 

President Donald Trump and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni both expressed optimism during a White House meeting on Thursday about an eventual trade deal between the United States and Europe.

 

“There will be a trade deal, 100 percent,” Trump promised. “Of course there will be a trade deal. They want to make one very much, and we are going to make a trade deal, I fully expect it, but it will be a fair deal.”

 

It marked the first time Trump publicly expressed confidence about trade negotiations with Europe, which he has frequently disparaged and accused of ripping off the U.S. on trade and not pulling its weight on defense. Thus far, he has prioritized talks with Japan, Korea and other Indo-Pacific nations in hopes of increasing pressure on China.

 

Meloni, the first European leader to visit the White House since Trump imposed and then paused a sweeping tariff regime against the European Union, noted that she couldn’t negotiate on behalf of the entire 27-member bloc but suggested that frank conversations would pave the way for an eventual agreement. European goods are still subject to Trump’s 10 percent global tariff on nearly everything imported into the United States.

 

“I’m sure we can make a deal,” Meloni said in front of journalists at the start of a lunch meeting. “I’m here to help with that.”

 

While Meloni and Trump put their friendship on display twice for journalists on Thursday, neither publicly suggested they were close to an agreement.

 

The Italian leader, who hails from her country’s far right but has worked closely with EU and NATO partners since taking office, invited Trump to visit Italy in the future.

 

Trump lavished praise on Meloni, calling her “a great prime minister” and “one of the real leaders of the world.”

 

Although Meloni coordinated with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen ahead of her visit to Washington, some EU officials have been nervous about her visit jeopardizing a united front toward the U.S. on trade. And their sense that Trump would frame the visit as evidence that world leaders are, as he put it a week ago, “kissing his ass” in response to the tariff threats proved to be well founded.

 

“Every nation wants to meet!” he boasted on TruthSocial ahead of Meloni’s arrival. “Italy today!”

 

But a White House official, granted anonymity when briefing reporters earlier, made clear that the Italian prime minister’s visit had been in the works “long before the tariffs came into place,” contradicting Trump’s own framing of the meeting as a response to his tariff play.

 

With time of the essence in cementing trade deals before Trump’s 90-day pause on tariffs runs out in July, the president expressed broad confidence that deals would materialize in time. “We’re in no rush,” he said, refusing to say which deals he was prioritizing.

 

“Everybody is on my priority list,” he said.

 

But Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said later that the U.S. is prioritizing talks with the “big 15” economies, touting talks with Japan and the European Union, and talks with South Korea planned for next week. “I believe India is also talking, [and] that’s moving very quickly,” Bessent said.

 

India was among the earliest countries the U.S. agreed to engage in trade talks with to avoid Trump’s reciprocal tariffs, and reportedly plans to eliminate tariffs on U.S. imports of ethane and LPG as part of a deal it is negotiating with the United States.

 

Trump downplayed concerns about China making inroads in Europe and Asia as a means of blunting the impact of his 145 percent tariffs on Beijing. “No one can compete with us, nobody,” Trump said, expressing confidence that he and Chinese Leader Xi Jinping would eventually engage in talks.

 

“Oh, we’re going to make a deal,” he said. “We’re going to make a very good deal with China.”

 

During a second appearance before the press in the Oval Office, Meloni outlined several areas of agreement with Trump — her support for his efforts to end the war in Ukraine, opposition to DEI programs, crackdowns on immigration and an overarching focus on culture and western civilization — while expressing a willingness to strengthen the U.S.-Italy relationship by increasing exports of American natural gas and boosting defense spending.

 

“Even if we have some problems between the two shores of the Atlantic, I think it is a time to try to sit down and find solutions,” she said. “But the goal for me is to make the West great again, and I think we can do it together.”

 

Meloni even stood up for Trump, deflecting a question from an Italian journalist who asked if she agreed with the president’s blaming Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for the war in Ukraine by emphasizing Italy finally reaching NATO’s benchmark of spending 2 percent of GDP on defense.

 

She dismissed another about his disparaging of Europe broadly as “a parasite” living off the United States.

 

“Have you ever said that?” she asked the president. “He never said that.”

 

But beyond their friendly banter and expressed optimism about making progress on trade, neither Meloni nor Trump indicated that any substantial progress was made during their meetings on Thursday.

 

And the president, while boasting about his business acumen and bashing former President Joe Biden while seated alongside Meloni, asserted that he planned to bully his way through trade talks if necessary with Europe and the rest of the world.

 

“Everybody wants to make a deal and if they don’t want to make a deal, we’ll just make the deal for them. We’ll say this is what it is,” Trump said. “We’re the one that really sets the deal, and that’s what we’ll be doing.”

 

Ari Hawkins contributed to this report.