Investors cautiously welcome US-Europe trade deal

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Investors cautiously welcomed the U.S.-EU trade deal, announced by President Donald Trump.
• The agreement includes a 15% tariff on EU goods and significant EU purchases.
• Optimism over easing trade tensions pushed U.S. and European stocks to record highs.

NEW YORK — Investors cautiously embraced news of a trade deal Sunday between the U.S. and European Union, a move that is expected to bring clarity for companies and some certainty to markets ahead of Friday's tariffs deadline.

President Donald Trump announced the United States has struck a framework trade deal with Europe.

The deal includes a 15% tariff on EU goods entering the U.S. and significant EU purchases of U.S. energy and military equipment.

"It's really in line with the Japan deal, and I assume investors will view it positively as they viewed the Japan deal," said Rick Meckler, partner at Cherry Lance Investments in New Vernon, New Jersey.

Optimism over easing trade tensions broadly helped push U.S. stocks to record highs last week and lifted European shares to their highest since early June. Trump's April 2 "Liberation Day" announcement of sweeping global tariffs sent stocks plunging in the immediate aftermath, due to spiking fears about a recession that have since faded.

Hopes for a deal with Europe were reinforced by Trump striking a trade agreement with Japan on July 23.

Still, investors have been bracing for increased volatility heading into Aug. 1, which the U.S. has set as a deadline for raising levies on a broad swath of trading partners.

"The two obvious reactions that you would expect are upside in the euro and upside in equity futures. I don't think equities in particular needed much of an excuse to rally, and now they've got one," said Michael Brown, senior research strategist at Pepperstone in London.

The announcement came after European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen traveled to Scotland for talks with Trump to push a hard-fought deal over the line.

In the agreement with Japan, the country's auto sector, which accounts for more than a quarter of its U.S. exports, will see existing tariffs cut to 15% from levies totaling 27.5% previously.

Contributing: Lucy Raitano

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The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.

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