EU customs deal with the USA: finalization delayed due to dispute over DSA
More than three weeks ago, the EU and the US agreed to settle the trade conflict in principle. However, there is still no final document.
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Three weeks after the EU reached an agreement in principle with the US to defuse the customs conflict, implementation is stalling because Brussels wants to protect the Digital Services Act (DSA). The Financial Times reports this, citing insiders, and explains that the US government allegedly wants to keep open the possibility of demanding concessions in the enforcement of the DSA against US companies. The EU wants to prevent this and stipulate in the written agreement that the DSA is valid. However, the US government sees this as a kind of trade barrier that should not be removed from the negotiating table.
Europe's “Basic Law for the Internet”
The disagreement over how to deal with Europe's rules for platforms on the internet has already led to the agreed timetable no longer being adhered to, the newspaper continues. US President Donald Trump was supposed to order that tariffs on cars from the EU be reduced from 27.5 to 14 percent before the weekend. However, he would rather not do this until the final document has been signed. While the US government wants to ensure that this does not make concessions on the implementation of the DSA impossible, the EU Commission has declared that this is a red line for it. It is therefore also unclear how long the debates will continue. In other cases, the US government has finalized a trade agreement on the same day.
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With the DSA, the EU obliges internet portals to create more transparency regarding the moderation of content and advertising. With the “Basic Law for the Internet,” the EU wants to ensure that illegal and criminally relevant content disappears as quickly as possible. The requirements are a thorn in the side of major US platforms, which is why Brussels now wants to prevent the US government from forcing exceptions for them in the trade dispute. Even before the agreement between Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Donald Trump, the EU Commission postponed the decision to impose a DSA penalty on the short messaging service X so as not to complicate the talks.
At the end of July, the EU, and the USA reached an agreement in principle to end the trade conflict. A standard tariff of 15 percent is to be levied on almost all goods from the EU, with special regulations for equipment suppliers and manufacturers of chip production systems, for example. There has been some strong criticism in Europe. France's Prime Minister, François Bayrou, for example, has spoken of a “black day.” German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said that “the German economy will suffer considerable damage.” Brussels, on the other hand, was already saying at the time that the defense of EU digital regulations had not received enough attention. This could now change.
(mho)
