| Cars from a Volkswagen factory in Zwickau, Germany, last year. Ingmar Nolting for The New York Times |
Europe and the U.S. firmed up their trade deal
The E.U. and the U.S. stepped away from a trade war when they announced a tariff deal last month. But that was just a handshake arrangement. For weeks, negotiators have been hammering out the details, and yesterday they released the specifics.
The backbone of the deal remains unchanged, with the U.S. imposing a 15 percent tariff on most goods from the bloc. That covers pharmaceuticals — Europe’s No. 1 export to the U.S. — which will remain taxed at 15 percent even after the U.S. finalizes an expected set of tariffs for foreign-made medicines that could be as high as 200 percent.
Cars are more complicated. Under the newly fleshed-out details, high U.S. tariffs on European vehicles will stay in place until the E.U. introduces legislation to lower its levies on many U.S. products. European automakers have struggled under the current U.S. tariff rate of 27.5 percent.
Takeaway: Jeanna Smialek, our Brussels bureau chief, told me that officials in Europe reacted to the terms, outlined in a joint statement, with “a sense of muted relief, because the deal looks essentially as expected, and having it written down grants businesses across the bloc some degree of certainty that things will not be totally upended again.”
Ripple effects: President Trump’s tariffs will affect trans-Atlantic trade in many ways. Take cheese, for example.
My colleague Eshe Nelson went to a farm in England that produces the award-winning Stilton cheese. “This Stilton is really, really special,” Eshe said. “They can’t make it anywhere else in the world.”
The owners of the farm are trying to expand their business in the U.S. despite the higher costs from tariffs. Under the separate trade deal reached between Britain and the U.S., exports of Stilton will be hit with 10 percent tariffs, on top of the current ones, for total levies of between 23 and 27 percent.
“This is just one example of the way in which trade policy is going to rewrite what we can buy, where,” Eshe said. Watch her explain in the video below.
More tariff news:
| The tariffs have forced some American small businesses into “survival mode.”Trump’s threat to impose 50 percent tariffs on India next week completely ignores the trade in services. |
Ukraine works to identify thousands of fallen soldiers
Since June, a railway station in the Odesa region in southern Ukraine has received the bodies of 6,000 soldiers as part of a swap with Russia. There, forensic teams hope to identify each of the soldiers, and return their remains to their loved ones.
This vast shipment of the dead is one of the few results of three rounds of cease-fire talks between Russia and Ukraine. The bodies are just a fraction of the more than 70,000 people in Ukraine who have been listed as missing during more than three years of war.
Not long after Trump hosted talks at the White House on ending the war, Russia launched nearly 600 drones and 40 missiles at Ukrainian cities, according to the Ukrainian Air Force.
Despite bold claims from the White House, a breakthrough toward peace does not appear within sight. Here’s why.
| MORE TOP NEWS |
From the U.S.
| Immigration: For the first time in decades, more immigrants are leaving the U.S. than arriving, a new study found. The graph above shows a new high in deportations under Trump. |
| Trump: A New York appeals court threw out a $500 million penalty against the president, but kept his fraud conviction. Politics: Lawmakers in Texas and in California moved to redraw electoral maps that could shape the outcome in next year’s elections to the House of Representatives. |
Elsewhere
| Gaza: Israeli officials said that their ground forces were operating in a neighborhood in Gaza City, but when the military might launch a broader assault was still unclear. Nord Stream: A Ukrainian man believed to have masterminded the 2022 undersea bombing of two gas pipelines linking Russia to Germany was arrested in Italy. Rare earths: The U.S. was exploring a partnership to mine Brazil’s vast store of the critical minerals. Then came the tariffs. Japan: A fire on a U.S. Navy ship anchored off Okinawa was extinguished after burning for about 12 hours and injuring two sailors. Espionage: A U.S. Navy sailor, Jinchao Wei, was convicted of using his security clearance to sell information to China about the capabilities of U.S. warships. |
| SPORTS NEWS |
| Tennis: Sara Errani and Andrea Vavassori retained their U.S. Open mixed doubles title, outshining a host of singles stars. Hockey: Meet Alexander Karmanov, the biggest hockey player in the world. Soccer: Serie A, Europe’s wildest football league, is back after a mind-blowing summer. |
| MORNING READ |
Joao Silva, a war photographer for The Times, lost his legs to a land mine while on assignment in Deh-e Kuchay, a village in Afghanistan’s fertile Arghandab Valley. Nearly 15 years later, he returned to see the country as he had never seen it before: at peace.
“I was here in search of closure, but not the emotional kind. I had unfinished journalistic business,” Joao writes. “My time in Afghanistan had ended abruptly. I had missed the U.S. withdrawal and the Taliban takeover, and I was sad that I had not seen the story through. But now I would pick it back up in a new chapter.” Here’s what he found.
| CONVERSATION STARTERS |
| For Beatles fans: An album with 13 unreleased demos from the band, a documentary and a new book are coming soon. Stranded: A hiker survived a week in the Norwegian wilderness with no food, no water and a broken leg. Here’s his story. “Dramione”: Harry Potter enthusiasts have turned fanfiction about a romance between Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy into best sellers. Sweat equity: India’s sports market is booming, and female athletes are trying to get their share. |
| ARTS AND IDEAS |
| The archipelago of Lofoten off Norway’s west coast. Sachelle Babbar/ZUMA Press Wire, via Shutterstock |
Are ‘coolcations’ overwhelming Northern Europe?
In Europe, where heat waves are closing the Acropolis in Athens and sparking wildfires in Spain and Portugal, more tourists are opting for “coolcations” and avoiding the heat of traditional summer spots by traveling to chillier, Nordic countries.
Nordic governments are eager to boost tourism. But in a region that takes pride in its environmental and social sustainability, the development is prompting as much concern as celebration. Read more.
| RECOMMENDATIONS |
Cook: Roasted chicken Provençal with shallots, lemon and garlic is the perfect dinner party meal.
