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LAST UPDATE | 29 Jul 2025
THE REACTION ON this side of the Atlantic to the contours of a trade deal between the United States and the European Union, announced from President Donald Trump’s Scottish golf resort, has been predominantly negative.
A “submission” on a “dark day” for the continent were the words of the French Prime Minister, Francois Bayrou. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen was “eaten for breakfast,” according to Hungary’s Viktor Orban.
Indeed, it is difficult to see what has apparently been agreed as anything other than a win for Trump, who needed one in the context of discontent within the Make America Great Again movement over files relating to his ex-friend, the late Jeffrey Epstein. More on that anon.
Tariffs at a rate of 15% will now be applied to most exports from the EU to the US. Steel and aluminium duties are set to stay at 50%. Von der Leyen has indicated that the EU will purchase $750 billion in US energy products, will increased foreign direct investment in the US by $600 billion and will buy a significant amount of US military equipment. Wow.
And the wildcard in all of this, especially for Ireland, is the pharmaceutical sector. Confusion reigns. Europeans say that pharmaceuticals are subject solely to the general 15% rate. The Trump administration, however, is conducting its own investigation of the pharmaceutical industry and asserts that they will be tariffed separately. Watch that space. It could be immensely consequential, and not in a good way, for us.
Those currently critical of Von der Leyen for what they deem a capitulation or surrender should be mindful that she and EU negotiators were in a tough spot. Because the US economy is still the largest in the world, President Trump, to use his language, had many of the cards.
In that context, 15% is a lot less than the 30% figure than he started with. Reconciling the myriad, somewhat conflicting entreaties from EU member states and business interests was not an enviable task.
Above all, there was a demand for certainty. At first glance, and despite the fact that a 15% tariff will pose an existential threat to exporters with already tight margins, the EU seems to have that. Here’s the thing, though: anyone who has followed Trump’s long career as a real estate developer and then politician will know that he is not a man of his word. He has routinely employed bait and switch tactics in the past.
Higher sector and country-specific tariffs could well be implemented on a whim, or on the basis of a breakdown in personal relationships, or owing to domestic political pressure. For example, the powerful Israeli lobby in Washington, DC will likely seek the imposition of punitive measures on Ireland in the event that the Occupied Territories Bill is enacted. Again, we are vulnerable on pharmaceuticals, which Trump is fixated on.
At home, the president will trumpet this as proof that he is a masterful dealmaker and will play to anti-Europe sentiment that is prevalent in his base. Moreover, notwithstanding the across the board inflationary impact the tariffs may have, expect the administration to launch a massive “Buy American” campaign, appealing to people’s sense of patriotism, as well as their wallets, and to simultaneously cast critics of the tariffs as anti-American. This would be shrewd politics as the midterms approach.
This is the type of new initiative that the president must embark upon as his decision to “pooh pooh” the so-called Epstein files continues to divide and anger his base. As has been pointed out, it is next to impossible to get the conspiracy theory genie back into the bottle once it has been taken out.
Since his first bid for the White House a decade ago, Trump has exploited the fairly widespread belief that there is a list of famous elites, so loathed by a considerable swathe of Americans, who engaged in a range of nefarious sexual activities organised by Jeffrey Epstein, with whom he himself was once closely associated. Going back on his pledge to release the Epstein files and effectively saying “there’s no there, there” was never going to go down well.
A mere 17% of all voters polled recently approve of how Trump has handled this matter and, unusually, self-identified Republicans are split. While the surveys indicate that it is not leading them to disavow their support for the man they have put their faith in, attacks from GOP elected officials and other prominent conservatives have manifestly unnerved the typically confident billionaire.
Additionally, the generally apolitical cohort of Trump backers, whose number should not be underestimated, is more inclined to have been drawn to him because he has paid homage to conspiracy theories. In sum, much as he wants to dismiss all of this, the president is not wrong when he says that this is “all over a guy who never dies, Jeffrey Epstein.”
Democrats rightly smell blood in the water. Even as the US House of Representatives called it quits for the summer on the order of Speaker Mike Johnson before this subject could be properly ventilated, the party’s leadership should use all platforms to ask a specific question that will resonate with the citizenry: “If there are no smoking guns in the Epstein files implicating President Trump or anyone else and there is nothing to hide, why not release them?”
The Democrats need something to go their way. Against the backdrop of the tumultuous Trump 2.0, they remain deeply unpopular. The Wall Street Journal, using two of the best, most experienced pollsters in the US, reveals that 63% of the electorate view the party unfavourably. This is their worst showing in 30 years.
Plenty of us have outlined in detail and with passion our party’s major strategic blunders. It’s actually pretty simple: we are perceived as too corporatist on economics, and we are perceived as too far left on the culture wars. Our tent has become smaller as a result. Yet astonishingly, a review of why things went so badly in 2024 is being conducted by many of the same individuals who brought us to this nadir.
The 2026 midterms should be terrible for the Republicans. But at the moment, unless Democrats wake up to political reality, as unpalatable as they might find it, I wouldn’t bet the farm on it.
Larry Donnelly is a Boston lawyer, a Law Lecturer at the University of Galway and a political columnist with TheJournal.ie.
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