The European Parliament will on Thursday vote to move forward the 2025 transatlantic trade deal agreed between the EU and the U.S.
Puzder on Monday called on the European Parliament to back the deal, telling POLITICO it would unlock deeper transatlantic cooperation on energy, tech and AI even as he pledged to seek to revisit the bloc’s digital rules.
Benifei, who leads the Parliament’s delegation on U.S. relations, warned that if U.S. “requests become a form of pressure over other issues like the trade deal or energy,” they will “backfire.”
That’s because EU “constituents are fed up of threats, especially now that they are suffering from increased energy prices linked to the war in Middle East,” he said.
Oil prices have spiked to their highest levels in recent years after the U.S. and Israel launched a war on Iran, leaving European consumers worried about energy prices and inflation.
The Trump administration’s “obsession” with the EU’s tech rules “should make us suspicious,” said German Green Alexandra Geese. “The [EU] should stand firm by its own rules and start enforcing them in a robust way,” she said in a text message.