Key events
Show key events only
Please turn on JavaScript to use this feature
France’s prime minister criticises EU ‘submission’ to US on trade
France’s Prime Minister Francois Bayrou leaves following the weekly cabinet meeting at the presidential Élysée Palace in Paris last week. Photograph: JE E/SIPA/Shutterstock
France’s prime minister, François Bayrou, has described the EU’s trade deal with the US as a “submission”.
Writing on the X social network, Bayrou, who leads France’s government and is second only to President Emmanuel Macron, said:
It is a dark day when an alliance of free peoples, united to affirm their values and defend their interests, resolves to submission.
It is not, then, a rousing reception for the trade deal from EU leaders. However, the leaders are unlikely to try to derail the deal; indeed, complaining about EU policies while quietly accepting them is a well trodden path for leaders of individual countries.
Share
Russian airline cancels flights as online group claims ‘hack’
An Aeroflot Airbus A320 aircraft takes off at Sheremetyevo International Airport outside Moscow in 2018. Photograph: Maxim Shemetov/Reuters
Russian airline Aeroflot has said it cancelled more than 40 flights on Monday “due to a failure in our information systems”, with an unverified online statement claiming it was the result of a hack.
The state-owned airline announced the cancellations on the Telegram social network. It did not give a reason for the failures.
However, an online statement purporting to be from a hacking group called Silent Crow claimed responsibility on Monday for an attack, Reuters reported.
Aeroflot told passengers of cancelled flights at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport to collect their previously checked baggage, and to leave the airport. Reuters again:
News outlet Baza reported scenes of chaos at the airport, with logjams forming as passengers queued just to get out.
Aeroflot has been limited mainly to internal flights since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, as well as cities in allied countries like Minsk in Belarus. Yet it remains a crucial part of transport infrastructure across the world’s biggest country by geographical area.
Share
Updated at 10.08 BST
Samsung signage is pictured in Warsaw, Poland. Photograph: Aleksander Kalka/NurPhoto/Shutterstock
Also on the automotive chip front, the share price of South Korea’s Samsung Electronics jumped 6.8% on Monday after it agreed a semiconductor supply deal with Elon Musk’s Tesla.
Musk said the companies signed a $16.5bn supply deal. Samsung agreed to allow Tesla and Musk access to the fab to “maximise manufacturing efficiency” for its newest chip, labelled A16.
The deal will be seen as a major fillip for Samsung, which has struggled to keep up particularly with Taiwan’s TSMC when it comes to manufacturing the most advanced chips.
Samsung agreed to allow Tesla to assist in maximizing manufacturing efficiency.
This is a critical point, as I will walk the line personally to accelerate the pace of progress. And the fab is conveniently located not far from my house 😃
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 28, 2025
Share
It has also been a positive start for European semiconductor companies. A 15% tariff is bad news, but it is not a disaster for the sector – which is crucial to US ambitions to be the world leader in artificial intelligence.
No European company is more crucial than ASML, the maker of the advanced lithography machines that use extreme ultraviolet light to etch transistors at the nanometre scale. Its machines are the only ones capable of making the world’s most advanced chips. Its share price gained 4% on Monday.
STMicroelectronics, which supplies Apple and Tesla, rises 3.1% in Milan, Germany’s Infineon, which mainly serves the global automotive market, gained 2.2%.
Share
Germany’s car industry lobby group has expressed relief that the EU and US could reach a deal – but they are hardly overjoyed.
Hildegard Müller, president of the German Association of the Automotive Industry (VDA), said it was “fundamentally positive” that the two sides had prevented further escalation of the dispute started by Donald Trump. However, she added:
It is also clear that the US tariff of 15% on automotive products will cost German automotive companies billions annually and place a burden on them in the midst of their transformation.
The hit to Germany’s carmakers is expected to come through lost sales if they pass the tariffs on to American buyers, or through a hit to their margins if they absorb the cost themselves.
Either way though, the tariffs will function effectively as a tax on US consumers, who must either pay a higher price, or else see protected US manufacturers able to raise prices themselves.
Share
European carmakers’ share price rise on US-EU trade deal
The relief for European carmakers is clear.
The 15% deal averted a 30% tariff on 1 August. Mercedes-Benz’s share price rose 1.8% to its highest since late March, and Porsche gained 1.7%.
Volkswagen gained 0.8%, although its gained were limited by a cut in guidance from its premium brand, Audi, which cut its sales forecasts by a further €2.5bn because of the tariffs. Reuters reported:
Audi now expects revenue between €65bn and €70bn, down from a previous range of €67.5bn to €72.5bn, and an operating margin between 5 and 7%, down from a previous range of 7 to 9%.
Stellantis, a group forged from a mixture of brands spanning from Detroit, to Italy and France, gained 1.2%.
Share
Investors might be cheered, but the reaction this morning from European leaders to the EU’s trade deal with the US is decidedly mixed.
Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, has long been one of the most divisive voices within the EU, and he wasted no time in criticising European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen for what he described as a worse deal than the UK managed to secure. According to Reuters, Orbán told a podcast:
This is not an agreement … Donald Trump ate Von der Leyen for breakfast, this is what happened and we suspected this would happen as the US President is a heavyweight when it comes to negotiations while Madame President is featherweight.
Belgium’s prime minister, Bart de Wever, struck a different tone – firmly placing the blame for tariffs on Donald Trump. He posted on the social network X:
This is a moment of relief but not of celebration.
I sincerely hope the United States will, in due course, turn away again from the delusion of protectionism and once again embrace the value of free trade – a cornerstone of shared prosperity. In the meantime, Europe must continue to deepen its internal market, cut unnecessary regulation, and forge new partnerships to diversify our global trade network. May Europe become the beacon of open, fair, and reliable trade the world so urgently needs.
Share
Global stock markets rise after trade deal averts spiralling EU-US tariffs
Good morning, and welcome to our live coverage of business, economics and financial markets.
Global stock markets have rallied after the US and EU agreed a trade deal, removing a major source of uncertainty for companies around the world even as it promised a permanent cost to trans-Atlantic goods trade.
European stock markets surged on the opening bell on Monday, a day after US President Donald Trump and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, shook hands on a deal in Turnberry, Scotland, on Sunday. Germany’s Dax rose 0.8% in early trading, France’s Cac 40 gained 1%, while Spain’s Ibex gained 0.8%. The FTSE 100 in London gained 0.5%.
Asian stock markets also mostly rallied. Australia’s ASX200 rose by 0.4%, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng rose 0.4%, Korea’s Kospi index gained 0.6%, while Shanghai’s CSI300 gained 0.1%. However, Japan’s Nikkei 225 fell by 1% amid doubts over the details of its own trade deal with the US.
US President Donald Trump shakes hands with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, in Turnberry, Scotland, on Sunday. Photograph: Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters
The US-EU deal will put a 15% US tariff on most imports from the EU, including cars and computer chips. Steel and aluminium still face 50% tariffs – but only above certain quotas.
There are zero tariffs on aerospace parts, some chemicals and raw materials. The EU will also agree to buy $750bn in US energy, and more military equipment – both of which fit with moves since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
There is good news and bad news in the deal, said Holger Schmieding, chief economist at Berenberg, an investment bank:
The crippling uncertainty seems to be largely over. The trade deal which the US and the EU struck in Scotland on Sunday with a 15% tariff on most US goods imports from the EU is bearable for the EU, much more so than the 30% tariff would have been which US president Donald Trump had threatened before.
However, the outcome remains much worse than the situation before Trump started his new round of trade wars early this year. The extra US tariffs will hurt both the US and the EU. […] The trade tensions with the US will subtract a cumulative 0.3 percentage points from European and 0.5 percentage points from German growth in 2025 and 2026 taken together.
The deal is asymmetric. The US gets away with a substantial increase in its tariffs on imports from the EU and has secured further EU concessions to boot.
The agenda
-
11am BST: UK Confederation of British Industry distributive trades (retail) survey (July; previous: -46%; consensus: -26%)
-
12:30pm BST: Donald Trump press conference in Scotland
Share