On July 27, the United States and the European Union announced a trade framework agreement, following a meeting between President Donald Trump and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. The deal avoided imposition of a 30% reciprocal U.S. tariff on EU goods that was set to take effect August 1, and a potential EU countermeasure targeting up to €93 billion in U.S. exports, scheduled for August 7 (i.e., Implementing Regulation (EU) 2025/1564).

Although the July 27 agreement defused an immediate tariff spiral, the absence of a binding legal text leaves room for conflicting readings, further negotiations, and opportunities for stakeholder engagement with U.S. and EU officials, as the details of the agreement are finalized. This alert outlines the key elements of the recently announced trade deal, as well as remaining uncertainties regarding its implementation and for the overall U.S.-EU trade relationship.

Click here to read the full alert on cov.com.

Print:
Email this postTweet this postLike this postShare this post on LinkedIn
Photo of Arun Venkataraman Arun Venkataraman

Arun Venkataraman leverages 20 plus years of government and private sector experience to provide legal, policy, and strategic advice to clients on a range of international trade matters.

Arun joined the firm after serving in senior roles at the U.S. Department of Commerce.

Arun Venkataraman leverages 20 plus years of government and private sector experience to provide legal, policy, and strategic advice to clients on a range of international trade matters.

Arun joined the firm after serving in senior roles at the U.S. Department of Commerce. Most recently, he served as the Senate-confirmed Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Global Markets and Director General of the U.S. and Foreign Commercial Service at the International Trade Administration (ITA) from 2022-2025. Arun led the federal government’s efforts to expand commercial opportunities for U.S. firms overseas and foreign firms in the United States, including by facilitating deals between U.S. and foreign companies, improving commercial policy environments, resolving barriers to trade and investment, and negotiating governmental agreements to promote commercial partnerships. He also served as Counselor to the Secretary of Commerce, advising the Secretary on all aspects of foreign economic policy within the Department. In this role, Arun led negotiations with foreign governments on technology policy, as well as Section 232 steel and aluminum tariffs.

Before joining the Biden Administration, Arun was Senior Director, Global Government Engagement, at Visa. He developed and executed engagement strategy, in advocacy before the U.S. and foreign governments, as well as with trade associations, international organizations, and other stakeholder groups on a range of international policy issues including digital economy, trade, tax, and sanctions.

During the Obama Administration, Arun served as ITA’s first-ever Director of Policy, where he led efforts across the Commerce Department to remove global trade and investment barriers and strengthen the global competitiveness of U.S. industry, including in such markets as China and India. This included leading Department efforts to support Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations, pass Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) legislation, and secure improvements in China’s competition law and semiconductor policies.

Arun also served in the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) as the Director for India, where he led the development and implementation of U.S.-India trade policy, for which he received the agency’s Kelly Award for outstanding performance and extraordinary leadership. He also served as USTR’s Associate General Counsel, representing the United States in litigation before the World Trade Organization (WTO) and in bilateral and multilateral negotiations on international trade agreements.

Prior to USTR, Arun was a Legal Officer in the Appellate Body Secretariat at the WTO, where he advised on appeals in litigation between countries under WTO rules. He also served as a Law Clerk for Judge Jane A. Restani at the U.S. Court of International Trade.

Read more about Arun VenkataramanEmail
Show more Show less
Photo of Atli Stannard Atli Stannard

Atli Stannard is special counsel in the firm’s Public Policy practice. He guides clients in highly regulated industries through complex EU policymaking processes, protecting and advancing their core business and regulatory priorities.

Atli’s practice covers all aspects of EU policymaking and legislative advocacy…

Atli Stannard is special counsel in the firm’s Public Policy practice. He guides clients in highly regulated industries through complex EU policymaking processes, protecting and advancing their core business and regulatory priorities.

Atli’s practice covers all aspects of EU policymaking and legislative advocacy, including the regulation of the tech, food and beverage, pharmaceutical and medical devices, and industrial sectors, and on EU trade, environmental and ESG, and competition policy. He has handled matters before the European Commission, European Parliament, Council of the EU, and Member State and UK governments. Clients rely on him to identify regulatory risks and opportunities, and engage in the policy process to defend and promote their business interests. 

Technology: Atli has worked extensively for clients on matters relating to EU data, content, platform, Artificial Intelligence, and competition policy.
Food and beverage: Atli helps clients developing novel plant-based foods to secure the necessary regulatory authorizations and engage in broader EU food policymaking. He regularly engages with EU and national authorities to ensure that health and environmental regulations are based in rigorous scientific evidence. He has drawn on his trade policy expertise to assist clients seeking to import food products into the EU.
Drug & medical devices: Atli has counseled clients and engaged with the EU institutions on matters relating to genomics, the regulation of medical devices and in vitro diagnostics, health technology assessment, orphan medicines, and pricing.
Industrial: Atli helps clients engage with EU and national bodies on the environmental benefits of their innovative technologies, and on EU plastics, chemical, and product regulation.

In his EU trade policy work, Atli regularly advises clients facing on EU market access and customs classification issues, trade defense actions (tariffs and safeguard measures), and non-tariff barriers (including sanitary and phytosanitary measures). He helps clients engage in the EU’s negotiation of new trade agreements. He counsels clients on the impact of the upcoming Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, and how to shape and comply with its requirements.

Atli is a member of the firm’s ESG and Business and Human Rights Practices, and works with clients to assess the impact of and engage with new and upcoming Environmental, Social and Governance rules, including the EU Green Deal, supply chain diligence and the EU’s developing sustainable finance rules.

Atli’s competition policy advocacy work encompasses mergers, challenges under Articles 101 (anticompetitive agreements) and 102 (abuse of dominance) TFEU, and referrals under Article 22 of the EU Merger Regulation.

Atli has counseled international investors extensively on the EU’s proposals for a regime on foreign subsidies, and on the EU’s new FDI screening rules and coordination mechanism, as well as on EU tax policymaking. He also works closely with litigation colleagues to protect clients’ legitimate interests in multiple venues.

Read more about Atli StannardEmail
Show more Show less
Photo of Kate McNulty Kate McNulty

Kate McNulty is a senior associate in the Washington office who helps clients navigate complex international trade and investment matters. She counsels companies, trade associations, and governments on U.S. trade and tariff measures, as well as implementation of responsive measures by foreign governments.

Kate McNulty is a senior associate in the Washington office who helps clients navigate complex international trade and investment matters. She counsels companies, trade associations, and governments on U.S. trade and tariff measures, as well as implementation of responsive measures by foreign governments. She provides legal and strategic advice to clients on global policy issues and geopolitical risks, including assessing and mitigating reputational, economic, or physical risk to their businesses or investments. She advises clients on the application and use of international treaties—including free trade agreements (FTAs), bilateral investment treaties (BITs), and agreements under World Trade Organization (WTO) framework—to open markets and resolve disputes, also advising clients seeking to understand and engage with the negotiation and implementation of such agreements.

Kate also focuses her trade practice on U.S. anti-forced labor laws as well as business-related human rights matters, advising clients on the application and enforcement of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) and Withhold Release Orders (WROs) issued by the U.S. government. She helps clients develop and implement strategies to mitigate supply chain risks, including by building compliance programs, developing due diligence procedures, and conducting risk assessments. She also advises clients on conducting human rights-related investigations and implementing related findings.

Kate has represented corporate clients in both commercial and investment treaty arbitrations, including under ICSID, ICC, UNCITRAL, and ICDR rules, and also represents clients in proceedings before U.S. administrative bodies and U.S. courts, including in trade remedy proceedings (AD/CVD).

She also maintains an active pro bono practice focused on international human rights and public international law. She has represented U.S.-funded media outlet Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty to secure the release of one of its journalists in a prisoner exchange with Russia. Her work also includes representation of the Clooney Foundation for Justice, the American Bar Association Center for Human Rights, and the Public International Law & Policy Group.

Read more about Kate McNultyEmail
Show more Show less
Photo of Bart Szewczyk Bart Szewczyk

Having served in senior advisory positions in the U.S. government, Bart Szewczyk advises on European and global public policy, particularly on technology, economic sanctions and asset seizure, trade and foreign investment, business and human rights, and environmental, social, and governance issues, as well…

Having served in senior advisory positions in the U.S. government, Bart Szewczyk advises on European and global public policy, particularly on technology, economic sanctions and asset seizure, trade and foreign investment, business and human rights, and environmental, social, and governance issues, as well as conducts international arbitration. He also teaches grand strategy as an Adjunct Professor at Sciences Po in Paris and is a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the German Marshall Fund.

Bart recently worked as Advisor on Global Affairs at the European Commission’s think-tank, where he covered a wide range of foreign policy issues, including international order, defense, geoeconomics, transatlantic relations, Russia and Eastern Europe, Middle East and North Africa, and China and Asia. Previously, between 2014 and 2017, he served as Member of Secretary John Kerry’s Policy Planning Staff at the U.S. Department of State, where he covered Europe, Eurasia, and global economic affairs. From 2016 to 2017, he also concurrently served as Senior Policy Advisor to the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, where he worked on refugee policy. He joined the U.S. government from teaching at Columbia Law School, as one of two academics selected nationwide for the Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellowship. He has also consulted for the World Bank and Rasmussen Global.

Prior to government, Bart was an Associate Research Scholar and Lecturer-in-Law at Columbia Law School, where he worked on international law and U.S. foreign relations law. Before academia, he taught international law and international organizations at George Washington University Law School, and served as a visiting fellow at the EU Institute for Security Studies. He also clerked at the International Court of Justice for Judges Peter Tomka and Christopher Greenwood and at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit for the late Judge Leonard Garth.

Bart holds a Ph.D. from Cambridge University where he studied as a Gates Scholar, a J.D. from Yale Law School, an M.P.A. from Princeton University, and a B.S. in economics (summa cum laude) from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He has published in Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, Harvard International Law Journal, Columbia Journal of European Law, American Journal of International Law, George Washington Law Review, Survival, and elsewhere. He is the author of three books: Europe’s Grand Strategy: Navigating a New World Order (Palgrave Macmillan 2021); with David McKean, Partners of First Resort: America, Europe, and the Future of the West (Brookings Institution Press 2021); and European Sovereignty, Legitimacy, and Power (Routledge 2021).

Read more about Bart SzewczykEmail
Show more Show less
Photo of Matthieu Coget Matthieu Coget

Matthieu Coget counsels clients to develop and execute policy engagement strategies, to navigate through political risk, and to build and manage coalitions to accomplish their objectives at both the EU and Member State levels.

He also provides guidance on complex regulatory issues, particularly…

Matthieu Coget counsels clients to develop and execute policy engagement strategies, to navigate through political risk, and to build and manage coalitions to accomplish their objectives at both the EU and Member State levels.

He also provides guidance on complex regulatory issues, particularly in EU trade, energy, and food law. He frequently advises on the evolving regulatory developments in EU industrial policies.

Matthieu’s practice primarily services clients in the food and beverage, automotive, energy, and technology sectors.

He also maintains an active pro bono practice, addressing EU regulatory matters and supporting policy engagement initiatives.

Read more about Matthieu CogetEmail
Show more Show less