Donald Trump has announced a tariff deal with the EU to end four months of difficult negotiations between Washington and Brussels and averting a damaging transatlantic trade war.
The European Commission chief, Ursula von der Leyen, said “we have a deal” after a 40-minute meeting with Trump at his Turnberry golf resort in Scotland where the US president is on holiday for the weekend.
She described it as “a big deal, a huge deal” that would bring “stability” and “predictability” to both sides.. “The two biggest economies should have a good trade flow,” she said.
“It solves a lot of stuff and was a great decision,” said Trump, describing the agreement, which also involved the EU agreeing to spend tens of billions of dollars more on US energy products, as “a powerful deal” and an “important” partnership.
“This is this is really the biggest trading partnership in the world, so we should give it a shot,” he had said before the private meeting started.
Keeping the EU delegation, who had flown in on Sunday for the meeting, on tenterhooks to the end, the US president had repeated less than an hour earlier that the chances of a deal were only a “50-50”, and that “three or four sticking points” remained.
Von der Leyen said the meeting was “tough” and “very difficult”. Referring to a pre-meeting with Trump in front of the cameras, she later told reporters at Glasgow airport: “You saw the tension at the beginning. So we had to work hard to come to a common position.”
Under the agreement, the US will levy a 15% baseline tariff for most EU exports to the US, limiting a higher border tax charge on EU goods sold to the US market. However, the tax rate is higher than before Trump came to power, and a 50% tariff remains on steel exports; a set back for that industry.
There was initial confusion over pharmaceuticals after Trump said the sector would not be included.
Speaking to reporters at Prestwick airport in Glasgow a short time later, Von der Leyen said they were included but there were no guarantees of later increases in import duties.
“It is agreed that we have 15% for pharmaceuticals. Whatever the decisions later on is of the president of the United States: how to deal with pharmaceuticals in general? Globally, that’s on a different sheet of paper,” she said.
She also revealed zero tariff will apply to a range of other sectors including “all aircraft and component parts, certain chemicals, certain generics, semiconductor equipment, certain agricultural products, natural resources and critical raw materials”.
Under the terms of the deal, Brussels will agree to purchase $750bn worth of energy including liquified gas while at the same time agreeing to invest $600bn in the US, a deal that includes purchases of military equipment.
The deal stabilises the €1.4trn trade between the EU and the US and avoids a 30% tariff rate Trump threatened to impose on 1 August if talks had collapsed.
However, it means the cost of doing business with the US has jumped from the pre-Trump average tariff of 4.8% to 15%.
It also creates a division on the island of Ireland as traders in Northern Ireland can sell into the US on a 10% tariff rate, setting the scene for difficult diplomatic conversations over guarantees to maintain stability on the entire island in the Good Friday agreement.
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Ireland’s deputy prime minister, Simon Harris, said he “regretted” the 15% tariff rate but said “certainty” was important.
“There is still a lot of detail on the agreement which will need to be brought forward including in relation to pharma, aviation and other sectors. Over the coming days, we will be examining what has been agreed and the full implications for Irish business and the economy, including any implications for the All-Island economy,” he said.
There was also confusion over the tariff rate applying to steel. While Trump indicated his punitive 50% rate would continue to apply as part of “a worldwide thing that stays the way it is, von der Leyen told reporters there would be a quota system in place.
The UK steel industry is still faced with 50% tariffs despite Trump’s initial promise they would be brought to zero, with hopes that there could be further concessions when Trump meets Keir Starmer, the British prime minister, in Scotland on Monday.
The agreement struck in Scotland is likely to be greeted with relief by financial markets when they open on Monday, after a turbulent few months with jittery investors spooked by the prospect that Trump’s tariff wars could pummel the world economy.
Trump also signalled progress could be made in trade talks with China, with the US president saying “we’re very close”. Reports by the South China Morning Post on Sunday suggested Washington and Beijing were preparing to announce a 90-day extension to a pause in tariffs to allow for continuing negotiations, before a 12 August deadline.
Markets rallied sharply last week after Trump reached a trade deal with Japan, the world’s fourth-largest economy, amid investor hopes that the measures announced by Washington in the president’s 2 April “liberation day” plan could be avoided.
Facing von der Leyen in the eponymously named DJT ballroom at his Turnberry golf resort, Trump said he was “very honoured” to have done the deal, telling the European Commission president her staff had been “fantastic”.
The two sides shook hands and congratulated each other in front of a bilateral delegation that included the US commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, and the trade representative, Jamieson Greer.
Looking relieved and flanking von der Leyen were trade commissioner Maroš Šefčovič; Björn Seibert, her head of cabinet; Sabine Weyand, a key player in the Brexit negotiations and now the director general of the EU’s trade commission; and Tomas Baert, a member of von der Leyen’s cabinet who has taken a lead role in talks.
The hunger that has been building among Gaza’s more than two million Palestinians has passed a tipping point and is accelerating deaths, aid workers and health staff say.
Not only Palestinian children – usually the most vulnerable – are falling victim to Israel’s blockade since March, but also adults.
The United Nations’ World Food Programme says nearly 100,000 women and children urgently need treatment for malnutrition, and almost a third of people in Gaza are “not eating for days”. Medical workers say they have run out of many key treatments and medicines.
The World Health Organization reports a sharp rise in malnutrition and disease, with a large proportion of Gaza’s residents now starving.
Doctors Without Borders, known by its French initials MSF, says a quarter of all young children and pregnant or breastfeeding women screened at its clinics in Gaza last week were malnourished, blaming Israel’s “deliberate use of starvation as a weapon”.
HONG KONG (Reuters) – Heavy rain around Beijing and across north and northeast China has killed two and forced thousands to relocate as authorities warned of further widespread rain and risks of disasters including landslides and flooding.
Two were dead and two missing in Hebei province, state broadcaster CCTV reported on Sunday morning. Overnight rain dumped a record 145 mm (5.7 inches) per hour on Fuping in the industrial city of Baoding.
China’s Water Resources Ministry has issued targeted flood warnings to 11 provinces and regions, including Beijing and neighbouring Hebei, for floods from small and midsize rivers and mountain torrents.
Floods and landslides affected many villages in the Miyun district of the capital, with the rural town of Fengjiayu the most severely impacted and electricity and communications cut in some villages, CCTV said. More than 3,000 people have been transferred out of the area, Beijing News Radio reported on Sunday.
The flow into the Miyun Reservoir has increased, hitting a record peak of 6,550 cubic meters (231,000 cubic feet) per second, Beijing authorities said.
Rain will intensify in most areas of the capital, with the expected cumulative rainfall in some areas nearby including Miyun reaching more than 100 mm over six hours, Beijing’s Meteorological Observatory said. Low-lying areas are prone to waterlogging, it said.
Beijing issued a warning on Saturday for geological disasters, including landslides and mudslides, after intense rainfall unleashed, for a second time, a year’s worth of rain on nearby Baoding.
Northern China has experienced record precipitation in recent years, exposing densely populated cities, including Beijing, to flood risks. Some scientists link the increased rainfall in China’s usually arid north to global warming.
The storms are part of the broader pattern of extreme weather across China due to the East Asian monsoon, which has caused disruptions in the world’s second-largest economy.
Baoding’s Xizhuang station recorded 540 mm (21 inches) over an eight-hour period, exceeding Baoding’s average annual rainfall of about 500 mm. The deluge affected more than 46,000 people, forcing 4,655 to evacuate, CCTV reported.
Chinese authorities closely monitor extreme rainfall and severe flooding are, as they challenge the country’s ageing flood defences, threaten to displace millions and wreak havoc on China’s $2.8 trillion agricultural sector.
Firefighters are battling blazes that have broken out across several countries in southeast Europe, fuelled by dry conditions, high winds and extreme temperatures.
A firefighter has died and thousands of people have been evacuated in a weekend that has seen dozens of fires scorch forests and burn houses to the ground.
More than 50 wildfires have erupted in Greece in the past 24 hours, leading to evacuations in some Athens suburbs and a request to the EU for six firefighting planes.
A politician in Turkey’s fourth-largest city of Bursa described the scene as “an apocalypse” as forests burned and more than 1,100 firefighters tried to control the flames.
Turkey
Wildfires have engulfed Turkey for weeks, and on Friday the government declared two western provinces, Izmir and Bilecik, disaster areas.
Image: Firefighters battling wildfires in Turkey. Pic: Turkey Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry
Image: Firefighters battling wildfires in Turkey. Pic: Turkey Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry
Fire crews confronted 76 separate blazes across the country on Saturday, forestry minister Ibrahim Yamukli said.
Almost 1,800 people were forced to flee their homes in villages to the northeast of Bursa, where a firefighter died from a heart attack while on the job, the city’s mayor, Mustafa Bozbey, said.
Orhan Saribal, an opposition parliamentarian for the province, described the scene as “an apocalypse”.
Turkey recorded its highest ever temperature of 50.5C (123F) in the southeastern Sirnak province on Friday.
Fourteen people have died in recent weeks, including 10 rescue volunteers and forestry workers killed on Wednesday in a fire in the west of the country.
Image: A wildfire rages across a forested area near Cavuslar village, in Karabuk district, northwest Turkey. Pic: IHA/AP
Greece
Parts of Athens have been evacuated after more than 50 wildfires broke out in 24 hours.
People living in the suburb of Kryoneri, around 12.5 miles (20 km) northeast of the Greek capital, were told to move to safe areas on Saturday.
At least five people, most of them elderly with respiratory problems, have been treated in hospital for burns or smoke inhalation.
Image: Firefighters battling a wildfire on the island of Kythira. Pic: Reuters
Image: The sun sets behind the Acropolis hill as smoke from a nearby wildfire fills the sky. Pic: AP
Photos showed houses and tree-covered hills on fire as temperatures hit 38C (100F), and dry conditions and high winds fanned the flames.
Fire service spokesman Vassilis Vathrakoyannis said that under such conditions, wildfires “expand very quickly and become dangerous”, adding: “These conditions are expected to prevail over the coming days.”
There have been reports of damage, he said, and authorities “will take stock when the fires have been put out”.
At least 335 firefighters are also battling three major fires on Greece’s two largest islands – Crete in the south and Evia north of Athens – and also on the island of Kythera, northwest of Crete.
Greece has also received support from the Czech Republic, with a fire service based there saying they sent a team to support Greek firefighters battling a forest blaze near the town of Nea Artaki.
Image: People try to extinguish flames rising from a burning house in the village of Kryoneri, Athens. Pic: Reuters
Image: Firefighters in Kryoneri, Athens. Pic: AP
Image: A firefighter tries to extinguish blazes in the Athens suburb of Kryoneri. Pic: AP
Read more on Sky News: Israel pauses Gaza fighting amid hunger crisis 11 stabbed in US store
Albania
In neighbouring Albania, 26 fires broke out throughout the country on Saturday, following a large fire near the southern Albanian town of Delvina on Friday, which injured three people and forced the evacuation of about 2,000 residents.
Image: Emergency crews near Bulqiza in Albania. Pic: Reuters
Kosovo
In Kosovo, firefighters managed to extinguish 17 blazes fuelled by strong winds while 12 others remained active, officials said.
Eight cows were killed in the southern town of Prizren, after a fire engulfed a farm, local emergency services said, while 40 sheep died in a fire in the east of the country.
Getting aid is dangerous but we go out for the sake of children, says Gazanpublished at 10:51 British Summer Time
10:51 BST
Image source, Reuters
Image caption,
Mohammed al-Masry says he goes to aid distribution points for the sake of Palestinian children
In Beit Lahia, north Gaza, hundreds of Palestinians are carrying bags of humanitarian aid.
“The way of aid distribution is very harmful and dangerous, but we go out for the sake of children, because a child cries, telling you: ‘Uncle, I want a loaf of bread’. It breaks your heart,” Mohammed al-Masry tells Reuters.
“It feels like a million knives into your heart, a million knives in your heart. We bring a bag of flour with a million deaths, but we go for the sake of the children.
“We are calling upon the Arab nations, we are calling upon the entire world, everyone with a consciousness, everyone with humanity, for God’s sake, have a look at these poor people,” says Mohammed.
“I swear to God, one dies a million deaths to get his family’s food. It is unfair.”
Greek emergency services are battling numerous wildfires as a weeklong heatwave peaked with temperatures surpassing 45 degrees Celsius (113 degrees Fahrenheit).
Fires were still raging on Sunday morning in the Peloponnese area west of the capital, Athens, as well as on the islands of Evia and Kythera, with planes and helicopters resuming their work in several parts of the country at dawn.
According to firefighters, one of the most difficult fronts was around Drosopigi in northern Attica, just 30km (18.6 miles) north of Athens.
Authorities called for an evacuation of the village, while, according to state-run Ertnews TV, a house was already alight in Drosopigi, as winds of 5 to 6 Beaufort (in the range of 30-50km/h or 19-31mph) raged.
Authorities on Saturday warned of an extreme risk of wildfires, placing several regions under a red Category 5 alert, the highest on the national scale, due to hot and dry conditions.
A heatwave in Greece that began last Monday was expected to last until this Monday, according to the country’s meteorological service.
The National Observatory in Athens said the warmest temperature recorded on Friday was 45.8C ( 114.5F) in the Peloponnese region of Messinia. On Saturday, the temperature reached 45.2C (113.4F) in Amfilochia, western Greece.
About 100 firefighters were battling the blaze near Drosopigi with 36 vehicles, two aeroplanes and three helicopters, according to the Athens News Agency.
On the island of Evia near the Attica region of Athens, a fire was also raging out of control. Two fire engines were destroyed while two firefighters were taken to hospital with minor injuries.
A wildfire that broke out shortly before 9:30am (06:30 GMT) on Saturday in an agricultural and forested area on the island of Kythera in southern Greece was also out of control.
Strong winds are causing the fire to spread rapidly and prompting evacuations of several settlements. Greece has sought assistance from the European Union to battle the wildfires.
Israel’s military says it will open humanitarian corridors to allow aid convoys into the Gaza Strip, after weeks of mounting international pressure and warnings of starvation.
In a statement on Sunday, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) also announced what it called a “local tactical pause in military activity” for humanitarian purposes in three areas.
It came after Israel said it made an airdrop of aid into Gaza of “seven packages of aid containing flour, sugar and canned food”.
There have been growing calls for Israel to let more aid into Gaza following months of limited supply to the territory’s two million people. Israel denied what it called “the false claim of deliberate starvation” in Gaza.
Palestinian officials are yet to comment on the plan for humanitarian corridors, or on the reported airdrop into Gaza.
The IDF said it would open humanitarian corridors for aid convoys in Gaza to allow the UN and other organisations to deliver food and medicine to Palestinians across the strip. The routes would be in place from 06:00 to 23:00 local time (04:00 BST to 21:00 BST).
The pause in military activity would take place in three areas – Al Mawasi, Deir al-Balah and Gaza City – from 10:00 to 20:00 local time (08:00 BST to 18:00 BST) each day until further notice, the IDF added.
The UN and other aid organisations are yet to comment on the IDF’s statement, but they, alongside some of Israel’s allies, have blamed the country for a growing food crisis in Gaza, and called for the unrestricted entry and delivery of aid.
The Hamas-run health ministry said dozens of people were dying from malnutrition. On Saturday it put the toll from the last few days at 125, including 85 children.
The World Health Organization (WHO) chief, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, described the food crisis in Gaza as “man-made mass starvation”.
The IDF said that responsibility for food distribution to the population in Gaza “lies with the UN and international aid organisations” and added they must “ensure that the aid does not reach Hamas”.
Earlier on Sunday, the IDF said an aid airdrop “was carried out in co-ordination with international organisations and led by Cogat”, referring to the Israeli military body which oversees the entry of aid into Gaza.
The military also posted a video purportedly showing a plane dropping the aid. The footage has not been independently verified.
Late on Saturday, the Israeli military also stated that it had resumed supplying power to a desalination plant in Gaza, which it said would “serve about 900,000 residents”.
Israel cut off all supplies to Gaza from the start of March, and resumed with new restrictions in May.
Along with the US, it backed the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) and allowed it to operate in Gaza.
There have been almost daily reports of Palestinians being killed while seeking aid since the GHF began operations in late May. Witnesses have told the BBC most have been shot by Israeli forces. Israel has said that its troops fire warning shots and has disputed reported death tolls. It accuses Hamas of instigating chaos near the aid points.
Israel’s apparent concessions followed its acceptance of a Jordanian and UAE plan, backed by the UK, to air drop aid into Gaza. Aid agencies however said such moves would do little to mitigate the hunger of Gazans.
The head of the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency Unrwa, Philippe Lazzarini, said air drops were “expensive, inefficient, and can even kill starving civilians” if they did not go according to plan.
Lazzarini said his organisation had “the equivalent of 6,000 trucks” in Jordan and Egypt waiting to enter Gaza, and urged Israel “lift the siege, open the gates and guarantee safe movements and dignified access to people in need”.
The BBC spoke to several Gazans on Saturday who worried air drops could cause “serious harm”.
One man living in the north of the strip told BBC Arabic’s Middle East Daily that the process was “unsafe” and “caused numerous tragedies” when similar relief efforts were attempted last year.
“When aid is dropped from the air, it risks landing directly on tents, potentially causing serious harm, including injury or even death,” he said.
Meanwhile, Palestinians are battling dehydration along with starvation. One mother told the BBC she was “living with no food or drink, no food, no bread, not even water.”
Israel launched a war in Gaza in response to the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.
More than 59,000 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
