President Donald Trump has said he's in no hurry to sign a trade deal. His 90-day pause has two months remaining.
Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images
President Donald Trump said he's in no rush to sign a trade deal.
The 90-day pause on his "reciprocal tariffs" will run out on July 9.
There's a new trade deal with the UK. The US is also in talks with China.
President Donald Trump is running out of time to make trade deals before the 90-day pause on his so-called "reciprocal tariffs" runs out.
Trump said this week that he's not in any rush.
"Everyone says, 'When, when, when are you going to sign deals?' We don't have to sign deals. We could sign 25 deals right now, Howard, if we wanted," Trump said in the Oval Office, motioning to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick as Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney sat nearby.
"We don't have to sign deals. They have to sign deals with us," Trump said. "They want a piece of our market. We don't want a piece of their market, we don't care about their market."
Then, on Thursday, Trump announced a trade deal with the UK. "This is going to boost trade between and across our countries," British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said at the time. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, meanwhile, is in Switzerland for trade talks with China.
Wall Street continues to hang on every word.
After the UK trade deal was announced, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon told Fox 11 Los Angeles that Trump's tariff approach was initially "too aggressive" but highlighted the need to address unfair trade policies.
"These are deals in principle … a real trade deal would be 10 or 20,000 pages long," he said. "But any progress is good."
Here's what we know about where discussions stand for major US partners.
China
The US and China can't even agree on who initiated the discussions. But it is significant progress that the world's two largest economies are talking.
Bessent has said that a deal with China is more complex, so the Trump administration views it as separate from discussions with other nations.
Beijing has boasted that it can endure a protracted trade fight. And while Trump has said that discussions have taken place, Beijing denied it.
A breakthrough could be coming, however.
Bessent and US Trade Rep. Jamieson Greer traveled to Switzerland for face-to-face talks with He Lifeng, China's top economic official. Talks between the two countries began on Saturday.
In April, Trump imposed a 145% tariff on Chinese goods, escalating the trade dispute. However, on Friday, he said he believes 80% would be an appropriate levy.
The talks will occur in the same city as the World Trade Organization's headquarters. Trump has long complained about China's 2001 admission to the WTO.
Canada
Trump recently met with the newly elected Carney in the Oval Office.
The economist and onetime governor of the Bank of England told reporters that Canadian officials, himself, and Trump planned further trade discussions "in the coming weeks."
During a public portion of their Oval Office meeting, Trump and Carney both said that there needs to be changes made to the US-Mexico-Canada agreement, Trump's first-term rewrite of the North American Free Trade Agreement.
In the meantime, the United States continues to impose a 25% tariff on non-USMCA-compliant Canadian goods and a 10% tariff on energy imported from Canada. Additional US tariffs on automobiles, steel, and aluminum also apply to Canadian goods.
Canada retaliated by imposing a 25% tariff on US goods, including steel, aluminum, and agricultural goods.
United Kingdom
In the trade agreement forged between the UK and the US, Trump will reverse tariffs on British steel and automobiles
British steel and aluminum won't be subject to US-imposed 25% tariffs. And tariffs for UK cars imported into the United States will be cut from 27.5% to 10% for the first 100,000 vehicles.
US farmers will also get more access to UK markets.
The White House said the deal represents a "$5 billion opportunity for new exports for US farmers, ranchers, and producers."
Trump's 10% tariff — still in effect for most countries — will remain in place for the UK.
India
Vice President JD Vance said on May 1 that a US-India trade deal would "be among the first deals" the administration will reach.
"Pretty soon," Vance told Fox News anchor Bret Baier.
Vance traveled to India for four days in April and spent significant time with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Trump announced a 27% tariff on Indian goods at the White House as part of his "Liberation Day" celebration. His 90-day pause on those tariffs ends on July 9.
As a large purchaser of Venezuelan oil, India could also face additional US tariffs.
Vietnam
Vietnam's top trade negotiator Nguyen Hong Dien on May 7 urged his country's businesses to be "proactive" in doing more business with the US.
Greer, according to a Bloomberg News report, told Dien during a March meeting in Washington that Vietnam needed to do more to lower the US trade deficit. The US deficit was $123.5 billion in 2024, an 18% increase from the previous year.
Trump imposed a 46% tariff on Vietnam as part of his "Liberation Day" announcement — it, too, is subject to the 90-day pause.
European Union
European Trade Commissioner Maros Sefcovic said on May 6 that the European Union will release more details about potential countermeasures should talks with Trump fail.
"Negotiations clearly come first but not at any cost," Sefcovic told reporters, per NBC News.
In April, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni became the first European leader to visit Washington after Trump roiled global markets with his "Liberation Day" tariffs. At the time, both she and Trump spoke positively of a potential deal.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk said in April that he hoped to see a "free trade zone" between the US and Europe.
Japan
Trump said on April 30 that he had "potential deals" with Japan, India, and South Korea.
Ryosei Akazawa, Japan's chief negotiator, told reporters a few days later that he and his US counterparts had "concrete discussions."
"There are still many issues that need to be addressed and resolved before a final agreement can be reached," Akazawa said.
Trump imposed a 24% tariff on Japanese goods before announcing his 90-day pause.
South Korea
South Korea sent representatives to the US early on, but it's unlikely to be one of the first countries to strike a deal.
That's because South Korea is holding snap elections on June 3. A senior government official previously told Reuters that no deal would come before the election.
Top US allies are discussing how to make Americans "feel the pain" after Trump hit their countries with tariffs and threatened to leave NATO. Politico's Eli Stokols and journalists in the Axel Springer network report on how US allies could retaliate in this video collaboration with Business Insider.
TikTok faces one of the largest fines ever issued under European law for unlawfully transferring users' personal data from the EU to China.
Jens Büttner/picture alliance via Getty Images
EU regulators hit TikTok with a $600 million fine for unlawful data transfers to China.
They said TikTok failed to ensure EU-level data protection under Chinese law.
The social media giant said on Friday that it disagreed with the fine and planned to appeal.
European regulators have fined TikTok $600 million after concluding that the social media giant unlawfully transferred users' personal data from the EU to China and failed to meet key transparency obligations under European data privacy laws.
Ireland's Data Protection Commission, which acts as the lead EU watchdog for many global tech firms headquartered in Dublin, led the investigation.
It said TikTok failed to ensure that data accessed by employees in China was protected at a level "essentially equivalent" to EU standards, as required under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
Regulators also said the company misled users by failing to name China as a data destination and not disclosing the extent of remote access from countries like China, breaching GDPR's transparency rules.
"As a result of TikTok's failure to undertake the necessary assessments, TikTok did not address potential access by Chinese authorities to EEA personal data under Chinese anti-terrorism, counter-espionage, and other laws identified by TikTok as materially diverging from EU standards," Deputy Commissioner Graham Doyle said.
The $600 million penalty includes about $550 million for unlawful data transfers and about $50 million for transparency violations. The penalty is the third-largest ever under the GDPR and part of a growing European scrutiny targeting Big Tech's data practices.
TikTok may face a suspension of data transfers to China if it doesn't comply within six months.
Last month, TikTok acknowledged that limited European user data had been stored on servers in China, contrary to previous claims, and that it has since been deleted.
However, in a statement on Friday, the social media giant said it disagreed with the decision and plans to appeal.
Christine Grahn, TikTok's head of public policy and government relations, said the ruling overlooks significant reforms introduced under its "Project Clover" data security initiative.
She added that TikTok has never received or complied with a request for European user data from Chinese authorities.
This isn't TikTok's first major penalty. In 2023, Ireland's Data Protection Commission fined it $368 million for failing to protect children's data.
That same year, Meta was fined$1.3 billion over concerns that Facebook data transferred to the US could be used to spy on European citizens in violation of the EU's privacy laws.
President Donald Trump's tariffs may prompt EU consumers to abandon US brands, an ECB survey said.
Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
A European Central Bank survey shows some Europeans are ready to ditch US products.
44% say they prefer to switch away from US brands, regardless of tariff levels.
President Donald Trump imposed a 10% tariff baseline on most trading partners, including the EU.
As trade tensions simmer between the US and Europe, Europeans aren't just bracing for higher prices — they're rethinking purchases from American brands altogether.
A new survey by the European Central Bank, released Wednesday, suggests that President Donald Trump's tariffs on EU products could trigger a major, long-lasting change in European consumer habits.
The ECB's March Consumer Expectations survey, which polled roughly 19,000 respondents, asked how likely they were to buy non-US alternatives under hypothetical tariffs of 5%, 10%, or 20%.
Across all scenarios, the median "substitution score" was 80 out of 100, signaling a strong willingness to switch away from US products and services.
44% of respondents cited "preference" rather than price as the main reason for abandoning US products. For this group, the median substitution score shot up to 95 and remained unchanged regardless of how steep the tariff was.
Even more unexpectedly, higher-income households were the most likely to switch, likely motivated more by preference than price concerns.
"It seems that the mere presence of a tariff would prompt a large share of consumers to reconsider what they buy," the ECB's blogpost said, adding that this may signal a "possible long-term structural shift in consumer preferences away from US products and brands."
The survey comes just weeks after Trump announced a 20% baseline tariff on most trading partners, including the EU. The EU then imposed 25% retaliatory tariffs, but later, after Trump cut the tariff on Europe to 10% until July, it paused them for 90 days.
However, this reprieve hasn't stopped the EU from considering broader retaliatory options.
These include finding alternative defense suppliers, rolling out stronger counter-tariffs, and reducing dependence on US tech and intellectual property protections, according to more than two dozen government officials in Europe and Canada familiar with the discussions.
Meanwhile, US brands are already feeling the pinch. Tesla's sales in Europe dropped 42% in the first two months of 2025, and US whiskey and travel to America have also seen consumer boycotts.
Europe has fined Apple and Meta $800 million for violating antitrust rules.
The Trump administration had already warned that it won't let Europe push around US tech companies.
On the one hand, maybe Trump will back Big Tech against the EU. On the other hand, Trump is causing plenty of pain for those companies himself.
The European Union has fined Apple and Meta a combined $800 million for violating antitrust laws.
Is that a big deal?
On the one hand, not at all.
If Apple and Meta end up paying the fines — both companies say they will appeal the rulings from the European Commission — the financial impact will be minimal to the tech giants' bottom lines. Apple generates $93.7 billion in profit a year; Meta does $23.9 billion.
"The European Commission is attempting to handicap successful American businesses while allowing Chinese and European companies to operate under different standards," Meta comms and policy head Joel Kaplan said in a statement Wednesday.
Apple also weighed in: "Today's announcements are yet another example of the European Commission unfairly targeting Apple in a series of decisions that are bad for the privacy and security of our users, bad for products, and force us to give away our technology for free."
The specifics of Europe's complaints about Meta and Apple have to do with the Digital Markets Act. Those rules are meant to constrain the power of giant tech companies — meaning US companies.
Both complaints preceded Donald Trump's second presidential victory. But both Apple and Meta are clearly hoping that Trump sees them as something that can be negotiated away as part of his administration's tariff wars. Something like "Europe drops these charges against US tech companies, and the US cuts back on the 20% tariff it's planning to levy on Europe."
At various times, that has seemed like something Trump and his team are interested in pursuing. Like in February, when Trump issued a memo, written with Europe in mind, vowing to "defend American companies and innovators from overseas extortion."
And there's speculation that the EU, which could have fined both Apple and Meta up to 10% of their total annual revenue, came down with much smaller fines because it didn't want to aggravate tariff tensions.
Except … that same Trump administration has been causing headaches of its own for Big Tech companies.
It's a pretty baffling set of contradictions. Perhaps the most generous way of interpreting them would be something like: The White House wants to keep Big Tech in line — but it wants to do it itself.
As we've learned, trying to predict what the Trump administration is going to do about just about anything — and especially on trade — is a very difficult task.
On Wednesday, for instance, markets are surging in part because Trump just signaled that he's going to soften his approach to China. But maybe that will be different Thursday or next week. So it's certainly too early to tell what Wednesday's actions mean for Big Tech will ultimately mean.
President Donald Trump met with foreign leaders from El Salvador and Italy this week, advancing negotiations on both trade and immigration issues at the White House.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni visited Washington during a pause in steep tariffs against the European Union and other countries that could go into effect in June. But both Trump and Meloni voiced optimism that the two countries would secure a deal before then.
"There will be a trade deal, 100%," Trump told reporters at the White House Thursday. "Of course there will be a trade deal, they want to make one very much, and we’re going to make a trade deal. I fully expect it, but it’ll be a fair deal."
When asked whether she still considered the U.S. a reliable trading partner due to changes related to tariff policy, Meloni said that she wouldn’t have made the trek to the White House unless it were so. Meloni said her objective for the trip was to invite Trump to meetings on behalf of Italy and Europe to foster a trade negotiation between the two states.
"I think the best way is that we simply speak frankly about the needs that every one of us has and find ourselves in the middle for that's useful for all," Meloni told reporters Thursday.
Meanwhile, Vice President JD Vance met with Meloni Friday in Rome to continue discussing economic policies between the two countries.
Here’s what also happened this week:
Trump kicked off the week meeting with El Salvador President Nayib Bukele Monday, launching a debate about whether El Salvador should return Maryland resident Kilmar Abrego-Garcia after he was deported there.
On Monday, Trump administration officials and Bukele agreed that they didn't have the authority to return Abrego-Garcia to the U.S., even though the Trump administration admitted in court filings that he was deported in an "administrative error." Even so, the Trump administration has accused Abrego-Garcia of being a member of the MS-13 gang, a designated terrorist group.
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court upheld in April a lower court's order that "requires the government to 'facilitate' Abrego Garcia's release from custody in El Salvador and to ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador."
While Attorney General Pam Bondi told reporters Monday that El Salvador would call the final shots on whether it would return Abrego-Garcia, Bukele said it was "preposterous" for El Salvador to do so.
"How can I smuggle a terrorist into the U.S.? I don't have the power to return him to the United States," Bukele said.
Additionally, the Justice Department unveiled documents Wednesday detailing domestic violence allegations that Abrego-Garcia’s wife, Jennifer Vasquez, included in a court filing in 2021. Vasquez alleged in the filing that Garcia beat her and that she had documentation of the bruises he left on her.
The Trump administration also continued to go after federal funding at higher education institutions.
After Harvard refused to comply with a series of requests from the Trump administration to reform various practices on campus, the administration revealed Monday that it would freeze more than $2 billion in federal funding for the institution.
Harvard University President Alan M. Garber said in a Monday statement that the Trump administration included additional requests unrelated to tackling antisemitism on campus. As a result, Garber said the institution would not bend to those requests, claiming they were unconstitutional.
Garber said the new requests "direct governmental regulation of the ‘intellectual conditions’ at Harvard," including auditing viewpoints of student, faculty and staff members on campus, and eliminating all diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs, offices and initiatives at Harvard.
"It makes clear that the intention is not to work with us to address antisemitism in a cooperative and constructive manner," Garber said. "We have informed the administration through our legal counsel that we will not accept their proposed agreement."
Trump also signed an executive order Tuesday seeking to combat soaring prescription drug prices.
The directive instructs Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to standardize Medicare payments for prescription drugs, including those used for cancer patients, no matter where a patient receives treatment. This could lower prices for patients by as much as 60%, according to a White House fact sheet.
The order also includes a provision to match the Medicare payment for certain prescription drugs to the price that hospitals pay for those drugs. That amounts to up to 35% lower than what the government pays to acquire those medications, the White House said.
Drug prices have significantly risen in recent years. Between January 2022 and January 2023, prescription drug prices rose more than 15% and reached an average of $590 per drug product, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. Of the 4,200 prescription drugs included on that list, 46% of the price increases exceeded the rate of inflation.
The EU announced hefty tariffs on Chinese EV imports last year.
AFP via Getty Images
The US's new tariffs on China are raising concerns in Europe about overcapacity due to trade diversions.
The EU has raised the issue with China recently. The two discussed ways to track trade diversions.
The two economies are also in discussion about hefty tariffs on Chinese EV imports into the EU.
The US's new tariff regime is causing concerns in Europe, where Chinese goods may be redirected.
Europe has long worried about what it has deemed dumping from China — goods like solar panels that inundate the market, driving prices well below what European makers could compete against.
The European Union expressed that concern last week in a phone call between European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Chinese Premier Li Qiang.
"President von der Leyen emphasized China's critical role in addressing possible trade diversion caused by tariffs, especially in sectors already affected by global overcapacity," according to the EU's official readout of the call.
The EU worries come as Chinese exports to the US are expected to fall sharply in the next few months.
China now faces a 145% tariff rate from the US that took effect this month.
Lynn Song, ING's chief economist for Greater China, wrote in a Monday note that he expects trade between the two countries to "crater."
Chinese exports surged 12.4% in March from a year ago, thanks to companies racing to get goods out ahead of the tariffs. But the export spike is unlikely to last, and President Donald Trump's trade war could quickly reshape global markets.
"If exports from Asia don't flow to the US, Asia may dump its excess products on Europe, inducing Europe to put up its own tariffs on imports from Asia. And so on," wrote Thierry Wizman, a global foreign exchange and rates strategist at Macquarie, last week.
The fallout has already started. Chinese shippers are reselling US energy products initially meant for China to Europe, wrote Henning Gloystein, the practice head of energy, climate, and resources at the Eurasia Group. US exporters of liquefied natural gas are redirecting cargoes initially meant for China to Europe.
"Watch a dumping debate coming to Europe's shores soon," wrote Gloystein on Friday.
The EU said last month that EU-China trade relations are "unbalanced, without level playing field and a deficit in trade in goods that has been widening over the last decade, fuelled by illegal subsidies."
Last year, the EU ran a record 304.5 billion euros, or $347 billion, trade deficit with China.
EU and China in negotiations
Despite these concerns, the EU appears to want to avoid a wider trade war.
Von der Leyen and Li discussed how to track trade diversions and address future developments in their phone call last week.
The EU does have leverage over China. Last year, the trade bloc announced hefty tariffs on Chinese EV imports. The two groups are negotiating the specifics.
Meanwhile, China is keen to have more friends on its side amid the global trade war.
On Friday, Chinese leader Xi Jinping made his first public comments on the tariffs during a meeting with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez in Beijing.
Xi said China and the EU should "jointly reject unilateral and bullying actions" to safeguard economic globalization and the international trade environment, according to the Chinese foreign ministry.
Germany's economy minister criticized Elon Musk's zero-tariff proposal as a sign of "weakness."
Robert Habeck said Musk should instead pressure Trump to lift tariffs, including the EU's.
Musk's call for zero tariffs comes amid market chaos after Trump's "Liberation Day" tariffs.
Germany's economy minister slammed Elon Musk's call for zero tariffs between the US and Europe, calling it a sign of "weakness" in response to growing economic turmoil.
"I think it's a sign of weakness — maybe of fear," Robert Habeck told reporters on Monday. "If he has something to say, he should go to his president and say: 'Before we're talking about zero tariffs, let's stop the mess you've just made in the last week.'"
Musk's comments came on Saturday when he proposed a "zero-tariff" system between the US and Europe. This was just days after President Donald Trump announced baseline "reciprocal" tariffs on dozens of trading partners, including a 20% tariff rate on the European Union.
"This is ridiculous," Habeck added. "The only interpretation I have is that he now sees that his own companies, but even the economies, are going to crumble because of the mess they have made. So, he's afraid."
Markets reacted sharply to Trump's tariff announcement, with the S&P 500 plunging 10% over two days and the Nasdaq 100 entering a bear market for the first time since 2022.
The sell-off deepened on Monday as investors saw little indication that Trump would back down and foreign nations prepared to retaliate.
Last week, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the EU was "finalizing" a package of countermeasures against the steel tariffs and was preparing further countermeasures "to protect our interests and our businesses."
While the UK and Australia have signaled they would not retaliate, China and Canada have pledged to respond.
Analysts have begun slashing year-end market forecasts, warning of heightened recession risks as trade tensions escalate.
Carl Futtrup, a 53-year-old Danish gardener, has been a key link in the supply chain for nets in Ukraine's modern war.
Courtesy of Carl Futtrup
Ukrainian troops need heavy-duty nets to block enemy attack drones.
They're getting over 1,000 tons from Denmark for free, thanks to Brexit and a lone gardener.
He and other volunteers are trucking heavy-duty trawl nets stuck in harbors to the front lines.
Carl Futtrup is no military man. The 53-year-old gardener spends most days on mowers and tractors, tending to fields in a town on the western edge of Copenhagen, Denmark.
But Futtrup, like many Europeans, has kept a close eye on Ukraine since Russia's invasion in 2022 and donated gear to the front lines.
Before Christmas last year, he caught wind of an unusual request from Ukrainians in the trenches. They needed nets — thick ones strong enough to stop the munition-laden drones that have become the battlefield's leading killer. Soldiers were draping them across fortified positions and combat vehicles as a final defense, and Futtrup heard they were saving lives.
"They write to me that they want more because, without this, all other donations are worthless," Futtrup told Business Insider.
Thyborøn, a fishing village of some 2,000 people in Jutland, just happened to have 450 tons of those nets sitting unused at the harbor. These were trawling nets, made of nylon fibers up to four millimeters thick for hauling hundreds of fish at a time from the deep sea.
Futtrup found Thyborøn's fishermen on Facebook and asked if they were open to making a donation. They agreed.
Now, the nets are in Ukraine, being used to snag Russian drones similar to insects on flypaper. They're just the first tranche of what Futtrup and other volunteers hope will be a total of 2.1 million pounds of Danish commercial nets — left over from Brexit fishing disputes — lining Ukrainian fortifications.
Ukrainian soldiers hope nets like Futtrup's will be a final line of defense against drones.
Courtesy of Carl Futtrup
As drones dominate the battlefield, defensive netting has become a hot commodity on the ground.
"They're really effective because the drones are still using propellers, and the nets catch the propellers," said Mykhaylo Ardashyn, a senior soldier in the Separate Artillery Brigade of Ukraine's National Guard. "Even after an explosion, the net will not be destroyed or burned completely, and some fibers can still catch other drones."
There are times when a snagged drone might even fail to explode, he told BI.
Ardashyn, who primarily helps his brigade procure supplies, said Futtrup's donated nets are being deployed on his units' section of the front line. The brigade is fighting near Pokrovsk.
Fishing nets aren't new to the war. Ukrainians have been using them in fortified positions since the full-scale invasion began, but primarily to provide camouflage.
Recently, Ardashyn said, there's been an increased demand for heavy-duty nets as troops realized they can be a reliable option to counter uncrewed aerial systems. The need is exacerbated by the growing use of fiber-optic drones, which can bypass electronic jamming and have to be blocked or disabled.
"We are talking about big nets," Ardashyn said. "Not those that people use by hand, but the really big ones, like from ships. The material is strong enough that it can handle a drone falling from the sky."
Some units have started draping thick nets on the tree lines along supply routes to hinder ambushes from skilled Russian drone pilots. Others have shrouded their fortified positions completely in netting.
Moscow's troops are using them too, said Federico Borsari, a fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis who studies drone warfare in Ukraine.
"The Russians are using nets to cover entire roads and protect their logistics from Ukrainian first-person view UAVs, with mixed results depending on the area," he told BI. But it's unlikely that either side will have enough time or resources to cover their entire rear with nets, he added.
Troops also use them to protect armored vehicles, relying on a combination of nets and metal frames — once mocked as "cope cages" — to lower the chances of direct impact from a drone. Even a foot or two distance from a vehicle's armored body can reduce a drone's explosive power.
"The amount of nets needed is increasing exponentially," Ardashyn said.
Ukrainians have been using nets to shield their armored vehicles and guns since the start of the war.
Courtesy of Carl Futtrup and Mykhaylo Ardashyn
Brexit's loss, Ukraine's gain
Back in Denmark, Futtrup has been contacting other local harbors and secured another 600 tons of trawl nets to send to Ukraine via truck. He's been speaking with Ukrainian media, such as the Kyiv Post, trying to raise funds from volunteers and the Danish government for transportation.
It's a heavy expense for the gardener, with costs for the second shipment totaling about 90,000 euros. Futtrup estimates that each truck can carry up to 20 tons of nets, and each trip will cost about 3,000 euros, or $3,200. A typical trawl net is about 1,300 feet long.
The nets themselves are free. Carsten Bach, a parliament member of the Danish right-wing Liberal Alliance opposition party, told BI that most of the donated nets sat in storage for years after Brexit cut off British fishing waters from Danish fishermen.
The donated nets were sitting in harbors because Brexit prevented Danish fishermen from using them in British waters, Bach said.
Courtesy of Carl Futtrup
"Some of the fishermen put a lot of value in these nets. It's quite a large investment for a small company or a single-person fisherman," said Bach, who is his party's spokesman on both defense and food. The fishing industry contributes about 0.75% of Denmark's GDP, but the country is the world's fifth largest exporter of fish products.
Bach said many fishermen chose to keep their nets, hoping that a new agreement with the UK could restore access to their old fishing spots.
However, Danish environmental laws require such equipment to be disposed of or recycled eventually. And Bach said fishermen typically must pay a large fee for this service.
The politician, who is helping Futtrup submit a financing proposal to the Danish government, said it's therefore likely these trawl nets won't be a renewable resource for Ukraine.
"There will not, in the future, be as large a volume of fishing equipment like this for disposal in Denmark," Bach said.
Danish nets won't last forever
Still, Futtrup's nets are supplying at least 13 units on the front lines, said Bernard Christensen, who runs the Swedish non-governmental organization Operation Change.
"This is our main vein for the foreseeable future," he told BI.
Christensen, a Swede living in Ukraine, has been helping brigades find sources for heavy-duty nets. One brigade typically requests about 50 to 80 tons of netting, and they can be difficult to procure locally, he said. Russian-controlled territory blocks much of Ukraine's access to the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov.
A unit commander overseeing fortifications and mine-laying in the Donetsk direction told BI that his battalion needs about three truckloads, or roughly 60 tons of nets, a month.
"We have no local sources for these nets, they can only be obtained from abroad," said the commander, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of his work. His identity is known to BI.
He said it takes his men about three to four days to set up one truckload, often in miles-long "tunnels" of netting along roads to protect vehicles against drone strikes.
But even with volunteer donations, there's barely enough to go around.
"Many units desperately need these marine nets," he added.
The nets discovered by Futtrup are loaded by crane in Denmark, then trucked over to the front lines in Ukraine.
Courtesy of Carl Futtrup
That means Futtrup's nets will eventually run out, and Christensen must search elsewhere soon. Operation Change is looking to acquire nets from organizations cleaning up the western Swedish coast, he said.
Jennifer Kavanagh, director of military analysis at the Washington-based think tank Defense Priorities, told Business Insider that Ukraine's demand for fishing nets is an example of how the fighting there has democratized modern warfare.
"In the United States, military and political leaders are always searching for the next best weapon or military system, the one platform that will give the United States insurmountable advantages," she said. "But what the Ukraine war has shown is that while these types of high-tech solutions to military challenges have their place, low-tech and inexpensive alternatives can sometimes work just as well."
Investing billions of dollars into advanced platforms may not be enough to win a future war, since they might be defeated by a less capable adversary with a simple or cheap defense, she added.
"Fishing nets might not be the right response for the US military, but in this case and others, the Pentagon should spend more time exploring less advanced options rather than defaulting immediately to complex and bespoke designs," Kavanagh said.
Meanwhile, Futtrup said he's pouring his energy into securing the money to truck over the donated nets. He hopes to acquire 50,000 euros from Swedish and Danish government agencies.
"Ukraine is part of Europe, and the country is only 1,250 kilometers from Copenhagen," he said.
"As long as there is demand for fishing nets in Ukraine, I will send them, until there is no more to be found in Denmark either," he added.
Fawn Weaver has never been able to run her business without worrying about tariffs. She launched her Tennessee whiskey brand, Uncle Nearest, in 2017, right before the European Union slapped tariffs on American whiskeys and bourbons as part of a back-and-forth trade war with Donald Trump in 2018. That means Weaver's international sales strategy has been affected, basically, since "day one," she says. And because Uncle Nearest was a new kid on the block, the company didn't really have much wiggle room on prices.
"We couldn't pass on those tariffs to the consumer," she says. "We had to absorb them, and there was absolutely no way we could absorb them."
When Europe suspended whiskey tariffs in 2021, Weaver wasn't home-free, either. She knew the suspension might not be permanent, especially if Trump landed back in the White House. So when he won in November, Uncle Nearest pulled international sales from their annual earnings forecast in anticipation of a return to the trade war.
"We had to make a decision to not focus as much on international until the trade war was over," she says. "Well, it's not been over."
And return the trade war has: The EU is threatening to implement a 50% tariff on American whiskeys. And now, there's a new and surprising trade foe: Canada. The United States' neighbors to the north aren't putting tariffs on US-made bourbon in response to Trump's various economic threats; they're simply making it impossible to buy.
"They pulled us off the shelf right along with Jack Daniels," Weaver says.
The reignition of the international brown liquor battle is another headache for an industry already reeling. After multiple years of solid growth in the 2010s and a pandemic-driven boom in 2020, domestic US whiskey sales have been on the decline, while international sales have flattened. Data from IWSR, an analytics firm focused on the alcohol industry, found that sales volume of US whiskeys fell by 1.2% in 2023, and another 2% in 2024. Globally, sales were flat in 2023 and are on track to decline in 2024. (American whiskeys include bourbon, Tennessee, and rye. The distinctions are key since all bourbons are whiskeys, but not all whiskeys are bourbon. If it's American or Irish, it's whiskey, with the "e." If it's from Scotland, England, Japan, or most other places, it's spelled whisky.)
For customers, this could mean some of their favorite craft brands might struggle and even fold if they can't get on enough shelves in America or abroad. Ironically, though, the bourbon industry's tariff-related headaches may wind up being a plus for American drinkers in the near term — distilleries could wind up with a ton of inventory they can't sell overseas and push more volumes and varieties onto the US market. That could mean prices on American booze come down in the near term, though some analysts say distributors could just charge more on everything, wherever it's made.
There's no denying the industry is facing troubles, but Weaver chafes at the idea of calling what's happening a bourbon "bust." Uncle Nearest is growing as a brand, and there are still plenty of whiskey drinkers out there, at home and abroad. Instead, what's happening is more of a normalization, and one she thinks more people should have seen coming.
"Everyone was so caught up in this 'boom,' no one was forecasting for the correction," she says. Whatever the case, Trump's latest moves are a sobering moment for an industry that can no longer deny its growing pains.
The modern whiskey trend in America dates back to the "Mad Men" era of the 1950s and '60s, explained Marten Lodewijks, the president of IWSR US. It's popularity started tapering off in the '70s — people tend not to want to drink what their parents drank. In the '80s and '90s, whiskey really struggled, which was a curse and a blessing, because it got to sit and age until it picked up in popularity once again in the 2000s, around when the show "Mad Men" came out.
"Those were sort of the glory days for Scotch whisky," Lodewijks said. "The bourbon industry was a little bit later to the party, but obviously they weren't blind to what was happening. And so they rose with the tide as well."
Over the past decade or so, bourbon has really taken off, too. Much like Scotch, bourbon makers have focused on premiumization — improving the quality and raising the price point. Where it was once seen as a product for drunks, it's now considered fancy. Because bourbon ages for less time than Scotch and has laxer rules around it in areas such as ingredients, distillers can be more dynamic in their approach, too. "You can sort of take more chances," Lodewijks said. "You don't have to wait 12 years to figure out whether or not your innovation is a complete miss or a potential success."
So all of these distilleries and investors and everyone got a little bit ahead of themselves.
Per the Kentucky Distillers' Association, an industry group, Kentucky produced 3.2 million barrels of whiskey in 2024 and has a record 14.3 million barrels aging. Multiple new producers and brands have popped up, bourbon collecting has risen in popularity, and some consumers have been willing and able to spend big on high-end bottles.
"There was a massive runup during COVID," said Tzvi Wiesel, a longtime whiskey investor and trader and the CEO of Baxus, a spirits trading platform. "So all of these distilleries and investors and everyone got a little bit ahead of themselves, and they're like, 'Oh, there's going to be this level of demand and growth is going to continue forever.'"
Private investors got in on the action, pouring money into distilleries and upping production. "They built the capacity to make a million new barrels a year," Wiesel said. The problem was, there wasn't actually a sustainable place for that demand and growth.
The influx of money chasing the increased demand led to what's become a market flush with product that has nowhere to go.
"The hedge funds and the private equity players, they've gone out and bought barrels, but they don't have a brand to go along with it," said Trey Zoeller, the founder and chief strategist at Jefferson's Bourbon. "When bourbon was very scarce, that might've been a good investment. Now, there's not nearly as many buyers for that as there were when there's such scarcity."
Despite hopes for a new normal, bourbon has long been a cyclical industry. Optimists expected the upward trajectory kicked off by the pandemic to continue, but the market's come back down to earth.
On the one hand, demand is clearly decelerating. By 2022, Americans had returned to their normal drinking habits — when you're back in the office, pouring an old-fashioned at 2 in the afternoon is a real no-no. Amid inflation and dwindling pandemic-driven savings, there's also been a squeeze on consumers' wallets. Alcohol is a discretionary item, meaning it's a want, not a need, and when budgets are tight, people tend to lay off. There are structural factors in play as well. Gen Z is drinking less. Cannabis may be taking some market share from booze. GLP-1s such as Ozempic appear to curb alcohol cravings. Those are "probably having an impact on the margins," said Nadine Sarwat, an analyst who covers the beverage and cannabis industries at Bernstein, though it's not clear they're huge factors — most 24-year-olds (of any generation) are not high-end whiskey drinkers.
On the supply side, the decline in consumer interest is happening at a time when there's a glut of whiskey available. Because bourbon has to age for at least a couple of years — most are kept for four to six years — producers have to anticipate demand years in advance. It's become increasingly clear that a lot of producers overshot their estimates. There's a ton of bourbon sitting in barrels with no bottles to pour it into or brands that want to buy it. (Some brands distill their own whiskeys; some buy it from larger distilleries on contract; some do both and even blend different barrels together.) While distillers can sit on barrels for a while, there are limits, depending on the product. Most bourbon has about a 10-year age limit before it turns. Many investors are on a tighter timeline ito get their returns, meaning they have to cut prices on barrels to move them on the market.
This is just wild, the pricing on it and how much that has just crashed.
"What I was paying for four-year-old Kentucky bourbon three years ago, I can now get 10-year-old Kentucky bourbon cheaper," said Blake Riber, who runs the craft spirits platform Seelbach's and blogs about the whiskey industry at Bourbonr. "This is just wild, the pricing on it and how much that has just crashed in, call it, 12 months."
Some producers have started to recognize the writing on the wall and scaled back, such as the distilled spirits maker MGP and the alcohol conglomerates Diageo and Brown-Forman.
"The challenge that they're all going to be facing over the next few years is, what do I do with all of the extra liquid in order to either let it age more or are there other outlets that I can use?" Lodewijks said. That may mean more flavored whiskeys or more whiskey-based ready-to-drink cocktails — whatever gets it poured before it goes bad.
The tariffs, of course, are throwing a wrench in an already difficult situation. As part of Trump's trade war, the EU is mulling ending the suspension of its tariffs on American whiskeys in early April. And this time, the bloc could set the levies at 50%, double the 25% from the president's first term. Trump, in turn, has threatened a 200% tariff on wines, Champagnes, and other alcoholic products out of France and the rest of Europe.
It's not entirely clear what it would mean for the American bourbon industry if the EU tariffs take effect. Given the recent glut and change in domestic appetites, growing sales outside America has been a key release valve for producers. Bernstein's Sarwat estimates that tariffs would result in a 10% hit to operating income for Brown-Forman, which owns brands such as Jack Daniel's and Woodford Reserve.
"Because US volumes have been really sluggish over the last couple of years, the international market has always been a real positive for increased penetration, and so any further challenges in that market does not help," she said.
Lodewijks said the EU's original 25% tariff led to about a 20% decline in whiskey sales to Europe, but that doesn't necessarily mean we know what a 50% tariff would do. "There's a point at which more and more consumers aren't willing to spend or spend the money that it would take to buy the product. So I'm not saying necessarily it'll be more than 40%, but likely, it would be more," he said.
The broad point of Trump's trade war — with Europe, China, whoever — is ostensibly to encourage companies to make more goods in the US. But in spaces such as alcohol, it's not so simple. Tequila has to come from Mexico. Scotch is always from Scotland. American whiskey companies would love to sell more to people at home, but American drinkers are not picking up what they're putting down. If tariffs go into effect on alcohol products coming into the US, people won't necessarily switch over to domestically made bourbon. If you're predominantly a wine drinker, you may not be jonesing to swap that for Wild Turkey overnight. And for the industry and Americans who do drink brown liquor, the tit-for-tat battle may not be a win either.
Last time around, American bourbon and whiskey companies ate a lot of the cost of tariffs instead of increasing prices. But not everyone in the space has such a luxury, especially the smaller guys who've already been pushed around by the bigger guys. They're trying to fight for shelf space wherever they can get it and are still trying to recover from the 2018 tariff bout.
"After the tariffs, everything fell off a cliff, and it has not recovered at all," said Becky Harris, the former president of the American Craft Spirits Association and the founder of Catoctin Creek distillery. "The big producers do recover. They recover why? Because they have massive amounts of money, they can splash back into the market."
That means some small producers may go under if they cannot find a place to sell their products. Given the industry's competitiveness, they could also try to increase prices, though that may be tough. The bigger manufacturers and distributors have broad portfolios of products that encompass different types of alcohol from different parts of the world. If they see a price increase on imports to the US for one of their product lines, say, a European wine or Mexican tequila, they may increase prices on American-made products, too, either because they have to or just because they can.
"It's very likely that under the cover of tariffs, domestic products will also go up in price," Lodewijks said.
You can't just roll back a tariff and expect loyalty to return overnight.
While some analysts and industry professionals told me the supply glut could lead to producers dropping their prices in the short term in an attempt to move their booze, Tom Fischer, who runs BourbonBlog.com, said the long-term news may not be as encouraging.
"If distilleries lose sales in Europe due to higher prices from EU tariffs, those same American distilleries may raise domestic prices to offset lost revenue," he said. "This has been shown to happen in the past with other goods, so we hope that bourbon won't be the next casualty."
Trump's trade war has the potential to hit the industry in more tangential places, too. Riber noted that not much glass manufacturing happens in the US, and he's starting to hear concerns from bourbon brands about potential tariffs on glass imports and needing to raise prices to make up for it. "At some point, that's going to have to get passed on," he said. Wiesel brought up the increased need for warehouse space as bourbon piles up that can't be sold. "Distilleries are going to have to invest a ton into the actual physical infrastructure to hold onto all of these barrels that they own that are maturing for longer because they don't have a place to sell them," he said.
And then there's Canada, which the president has picked a somewhat confusing fight with. He's threatened 25% tariffs on imports from Canada, has said he wants to make it the 51st state, and has taken an overall aggressive approach to the country. It's sparked a sense of patriotism in Canada — along with boycotts on American-made products, including bourbon.
"Canada is just pulling American products. They're essentially sending notes to their suppliers saying, 'Hey, no, I don't have anything against you, but my customers are not buying American right now. They're angry,'" Harris said. "And they said, 'Even when the tariffs are gone, this is going to take a while, so don't hold your breath.'"
Fischer expressed similar concerns about the potential European tariffs. "A 50% tariff risks pricing us out of key markets, and once those consumers shift, they may not come back," he said. "You can't just roll back a tariff and expect loyalty to return overnight. This is long-term damage."
Weaver, from Uncle Nearest, is still optimistic about the future. Bourbon is one of America's most important exports "in terms of symbolism," she said, and if you look at bourbon's history, "we've always had these times when people are drinking less of it, but then it comes roaring back." She gets that the president is doing what he thinks he needs to do to negotiate trade agreements. In the meantime, it might be nice if he gave the industry a bit of a PR boost.
"The best thing he could do is literally say, 'Hey, America, this is going to be in our best interest,' because this is clearly what he believes, 'but while we're working this out, we really need you to double down on bourbon,'" she said.
Maybe "Buy American" can become "Drink American," even if the president himself doesn't drink.
Emily Stewart is a senior correspondent at Business Insider, writing about business and the economy.
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte lauded President Donald Trump’s efforts to push NATO allies to increase defense spending, amid efforts to end the war in Ukraine.
Trump has long advocated for NATO allies to ramp up defense spending to between 2% and 5% gross domestic product — and has made it clear that European nations need to shoulder greater responsibility for the security of their continent.
"You're starting to hear the British prime minister and others all committing to much higher defense spending," Rutte told reporters Thursday at the White House. "We're not there. We need to do more, but I really want to work together with you . . . to make sure that we will have a NATO which is really reinvigorated, under your leadership. And we are getting there."
"When you look at Trump 47, what happened the last couple of weeks is really staggering," Rutte said.
Rutte’s comments come as European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen put forth an $841 billion proposal on March 4 for European Union nations to bolster defense spending.
Likewise, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer pledged in February to boost his country's defense spending to 2.5% of its gross domestic value. That is an increase from the 2.3% the U.K. currently spends, and amounts to a nearly $17 billion increase.
Still, Rutte emphasized the need to strengthen the defense industrial base in both the U.S. and Europe, and cautioned they were falling behind Russia and China in defense production.
As of 2023, the U.S. spent 3.3% of its GDP on defense spending — totaling $880 billion, according to the nonpartisan Washington, D.C.-based Peterson Institute for International Economics. More than 50% of NATO funding comes from the U.S., while other allies — like the United Kingdom, France and Germany — have contributed between 4% and 8% to NATO funding in recent years.
NATO comprises more than 30 countries and originally was formed in 1949 to halt the spread of the Soviet Union.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth also encouraged NATO allies to beef up defense spending during a trip to Brussels in February.
"NATO should pursue these goals as well," Hegseth said. "NATO is a great alliance, the most successful defense alliance in history, but to endure for the future, our partners must do far more for Europe’s defense."
Pledges from European and allied nations to increase defense spending coincide with negotiations to end the war in Ukraine.
Nations including the U.K. and France have proposed deploying troops to ensure that Ukraine is protected from future Russian aggression under a peace negotiation.
President Donald Trump on Thursday threatened to impose 200% tariffs on all EU wines, including Champagne, and other alcoholic products.
Alex Wong/Getty Images
On Thursday, President Donald Trump threatened 200% tariffs on European wine and other alcohol.
He threatened the levies in retaliation to EU tariffs on US goods announced Wednesday.
On Truth Social, Trump said the EU was formed "for the sole purpose of taking advantage" of the US.
President Donald Trump has threatened to impose 200% tariffs on alcohol coming into the US from Europe in retaliation against tariffs the European Union introduced this week.
In a Truth Social post on Thursday, Trump said he could impose the duty on all wine, including Champagne, and other alcohol from France and other EU countries.
"The European Union, one of the most hostile and abusive taxing and tariffing authorities in the World, which was formed for the sole purpose of taking advantage of the United States, has just put a nasty 50% Tariff on Whisky," Trump wrote.
The threat of retaliation is the latest escalation in a tit-for-tat exchange between the US and EU over tariffs.
It comes the day after the European Commission announced tariffs on more than $28 billion worth of US goods in response to new American duties on steel and aluminum.
The 200% tariff on booze would come in if these new EU tariffs were not removed "immediately," he said.
The European Commission said the countermeasures matched the scope of US tariffs. US goods affected include boats, bourbon whiskey, and motorbikes.
The commission added that it remained ready to work with the US for a "negotiated solution," calling the new US tariffs "unjustified."
On Wednesday, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the US tariffs were disrupting supply chains, bringing uncertainty to the economy, driving prices up, and putting jobs at stake in Europe and the US.
European defense leaders are meeting in Paris this week to discuss their plans to provide Ukraine with security guarantees as the continent steps up after decades of relying on the U.S.
French President Emmanuel Macron led with an address to the Tuesday gathering of defense chiefs from 30 European and NATO countries after the U.S.’ new "America first" policy direction jolted the Europeans into action.
Macron said it was time to "move from concept to plan," and told French newspaper Le Figaro that France would boost its defense spending from 2% to 3.5% of GDP, amounting to around €30 billion annually.
Details of any peacekeeping force are still widely in flux, but some officials said to expect a targeted deterrence force aimed at protecting key infrastructure rather than a wide blockade of the front lines.
Europeans were dismayed last week when the U.S. announced it would pause all aid and intelligence sharing with Ukraine, but that pause was lifted Tuesday after Ukraine agreed to a 30-day ceasefire. All eyes are now on Russia to see if Russian President Vladimir Putin accepts the deal, which came after U.S.-brokered talks in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, on Tuesday.
The U.S. has insisted that it is Europe’s responsibility to offer military resources to help Ukraine deter Russia from invading again once a ceasefire is reached. President Donald Trump has flirted with the idea of not protecting European nations under NATO’s Article 5 if they refuse to meet their defense spending obligations under the treaty.
The new call for Europe's defense was a welcome development for NATO’s eastern flank, where tiny nations have for years beaten out their larger European counterparts in defense spending as a percentage of their GDP.
"We should not be panicking about [Trump statements]," said Giedrimas Jeglinskas, chairman of the Lithuanian parliament’s national security committee.
"Europeans need to think about what sort of troops to put in Ukraine," he told Fox News Digital. "Europeans need to hold most of [our security] now. We need to show good will. Next to good will, you need to show numbers. How many troops can we generate, what sort of troops can we generate, what support we’re going to need from the U.S."
"I’m not going to provide security guarantees beyond very much," Trump had said at his first Cabinet meeting on Feb. 26. "We’re going to have Europe do that."
The United States – NATO’s most militarily powerful member – wasn’t invited to the Paris talks because European nations wanted to show that they are able to shoulder a large part of the job of safeguarding Ukraine once a truce is in effect, a French military official told the Associated Press.
But Jeglinskas said Europe should acquiesce to U.S. demands to pour more into its own defenses as it needs the U.S. for air defenses like the Patriot missile.
"People who are complaining about the U.S. – there's an abundance of that in Europe – yeah, show me the alternative. There’s nothing."
Over the weekend, top Trump advisor Elon Musk posted on X that the U.S. "really should" leave NATO. "Doesn’t make sense for America to pay for the defense of Europe," he wrote.
"It’s common sense, right," Trump told reporters of the NATO alliance last week. "If they don’t pay, I’m not going to defend them. No, I’m not going to defend them."
Jeglinskas said that in his meetings behind closed doors, U.S. officials have expressed America’s commitment to Article 5 is "as strong as ever."
"Sometimes Trump goes way over to get people to come to a position of reality," said Jonathan Bass, foreign affairs expert and Argent LNG CEO. "The fact that he went so far to what they considered crazy, [the Europeans] actually took him seriously and did what they needed to do."
Lithuania is currently spending 4% on defense and plans to bump that figure to 5-6% next year, which is why Defense Minister Dovile Šakalienė told reporters her nation plans to pay U.S. defense manufacturers "at least $8 billion" more in "the coming years" to boost defenses.
Russian aggression that could extend beyond Ukraine, including potentially into Baltic States like Lithuania, "worries us," she said.
"That’s why we are really pushing forward with our military capability plans, with our defense capacity-building, infrastructure and personnel and acquisitions, from weapons to ammo, building factories, defense industries."
Europe has offered Ukraine around $139 billion in aid since the start of the war, while the U.S. has offered around $128 billion.
But the European Union last week proposed an $841 billion plan to "rearm Europe," which included a $158 billion emergency loan proposal to arm European capacities in vulnerable areas like air defense and ammunition. The plan also calls for relaxing strict debt ceilings agreed to by the bloc for defense spending.
"This is a moment for Europe, and we are ready to step up," said European Commissioner Ursula von der Leyen last week.
Šakalienė said "strengthening the northeastern flank" of Europe was the "joint goal," which could mean stationing hypersonic missiles aimed at Russia in Baltic states like Lithuania.
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The European Union has a new plan to spend $840 billion more on its own defense after President Donald Trump paused aid to Ukraine and peace negotiations hit a wall.
"I do not need to describe the grave nature of the threats that we face, or the devastating consequences that we will have to endure if those threats would come to pass," EU Commissioner Ursula von der Leyen told reporters on Tuesday.
She said she had written a letter to the heads of state of all European governments outlining a "set of proposals" to "rearm Europe."
"A new era is upon us," von der Leyen wrote in the letter.
The plan details "how to use all the financial levers at our disposal in order to help member states to quickly and significantly increase expenditures in defense capabilities, urgently now, but also over [a] longer period of time, over this decade."
Countries in the EU would have access to loans of up to $158 billion for defense investment, according to the proposal. It also calls for relaxing strict debt ceilings agreed to by the bloc for defense spending.
"This will allow member states to significantly increase their defense expenditures without triggering the excessive deficit procedure," she said, referring to the rule that requires nations to bring their deficits down if they breach a certain amount.
The proposal also involves using the existing EU budget to "direct more funds towards defense-related investments."
"With this equipment, member states can massively step up their support to Ukraine. So, immediate military equipment for Ukraine," she said.
The new defense plan comes as Washington recalibrates its relationship with Europe, and conservative Republicans push Trump to lead efforts to pull the U.S. out of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
European leaders held an emergency summit over the weekend in London to discuss how to support Ukraine after the Oval Office meeting between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy brought peace negotiations to an abrupt halt.
At that summit, European leaders discussed ways to keep military aid flowing, increase economic pressure on Russia, and establish a "coalition of the willing" of European nations ready to offer forces to act as a safeguard against another invasion by Russia once the two sides reach a peace agreement.
"This is a moment for Europe, and we are ready to step up," said von der Leyen.
Even France’s Marine Le Pen, leader of the conservative National Rally party, called the U.S. action a form of "brutality."
"I consider the brutality of this decision to be reprehensible," she said of the move to pause aid.
"It is very cruel for Ukrainian soldiers engaged in a patriotic defense of their country," she insisted, adding that it was "very questionable" not to give the Ukrainians a warning before doing so.
The temporary pause will apply to all U.S. military aid not yet in Ukraine. It is expected to last until the White House determines that Zelenskyy is committed to peace talks.
"We are pausing and reviewing our aid to ensure that it is contributing to a solution," a White House official said.
After President Joe Biden shipped over a $500 million aid package on his way out the door in January, some $3.86 billion from previously approved aid packages remains, a defense official told Fox News Digital, including Guided Multiple Launch Rocket Systems (GMLRS) and anti-tank weapons and thousands of artillery rounds and armored vehicles.
European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen announced the plan on Tuesday.
Thierry Monasse/Getty Images
The European Union announced plans to boost defense spending amid rising security concerns on the continent.
The plan follows reports that President Donald Trump has paused US military aid to Ukraine.
The EU strategy includes loans and spending flexibility, but doesn't mention production capacity issues.
The European Union unveiled a plan on Tuesday to boost member states' defense spending amid an "era of rearmament."
The ReArm Europe plan could unlock 800 billion euros (about $840 billion) in funds, said European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen.
The announcement followed reports late Monday that President Donald Trump had ordered a pause in US military aid to Ukraine after a fiery Oval Office meeting with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
European leaders met in London on Sunday for an emergency summit on Ukraine. Many defense commentators believe it will be difficult for European states to fill the US-sized gap in military support.
The EU plan focuses on ways to help member states unlock funding for defense spending, for both the "immediate" defense of Ukraine and in the long term, von der Leyen said.
They include suspending the Excessive Deficit Procedure — a mechanism that normally prevents member states from going into major deficits.
Low-cost loans worth 150 billion euros will be available to let governments "pool demand" and jointly purchase air and missile defense and artillery systems, missiles and ammunition drones and anti-drone systems, as well as cyber capabilities.
"The question is no longer whether Europe's security is threatened in a very real way, or whether Europe should shoulder more of the responsibility for its own security," von der Leyen said. "In truth, we have long known the answers to those questions."
A handful of European leaders are coming under the microscope of critics on social media for issuing pro-Ukraine messages with the exact same wording following Ukraine President Vlodomyr Zelenskyy's fiery meeting with President Donald Trump on Friday.
"Your dignity honours the bravery of the Ukrainian people. Be strong, be brave, be fearless. You are never alone, dear President @ZelenskyyUa. We will continue working with you for a just and lasting peace," read verbatim social media posts from at least five different European leaders since Friday.
The president of the European Parliament Roberta Metsola, President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen, European Commissioner for Trade Valdis Dombrovskis, European Parliament member Manfred Weber, and European Council President António Costa all posted the same exact social media message on Friday, a review of X shows.
Fox News Digital reached out to the European Parliament and European Commission on Sunday afternoon regarding the posts but did not immediately receive replies.
Social media users quickly caught on that the messages were exactly the same, criticizing them as "kinda creepy" and asking tongue-in-cheek questions such as, "has the EU been bots this whole time?"
Trump asked Zelenskyy to leave the White House on Friday following a fiery meeting in the Oval Office, with Zelenskyy heading to Europe shortly afterward. Trump said Zelenskyy could return to the White House "when he is ready for peace."
Zelenskyy met with UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Saturday, with the pair spotted on camera embracing upon Zelenskyy's arrival.
"We stand with Ukraine for as long as it may take," Starmer said on Saturday while offering the UK's "unwavering" support for Ukraine.
A group of European leaders met in London on Sunday after Starmer told local media that he had spoken with Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron regarding the UK and France taking the reins on crafting a plan for peace that will eventually be presented to the U.S.
The UK leader vowed in comments on Sunday that the nation is "ready to put boots on the ground and planes in the air" to support Ukraine against Russia and ultimately reach a peace deal.
"We discussed a plan today to reach a peace that is tough and fair, that Ukraine will help shape, that's backed by strength, to stop Putin coming back for more," Starmer said on Sunday. "I'm working closely with other European leaders on this, and I'm clear that the U.K. is ready to put boots on the ground and planes in the air to support a deal, working together with our allies, because that is the only way that peace will last."
U.S. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard joined "Fox News Sunday" ahead of the London meeting, slamming some European nations for breaking with the U.S. on the value of freedom and reaching peace in Eastern Europe after criticizing Trump's meeting with Zelenskyy.
"I think those who are criticizing [Trump's] efforts in this way are showing that they are not committed to peace, and in the case of many of those European countries, that they're not committed to the cause and values of freedom, even though they speak of this," Gabbard told Fox News' Shannon Bream on Sunday morning when asked about Democrat U.S. politicians criticizing the meeting at the White House and Russia celebrating Trump's tense meeting with Zelenskyy.
"We heard very clearly, during Vice President Vance's speech in Munich, different examples of how these European partners and longtime allies, in many cases, are actually implementing policies that undermine democracy that shows that they don't actually believe in the voices of the people being heard, and implementing anti-freedom policies. We're seeing this in the United Kingdom. We're seeing this in Germany. We saw it with the tossing out of the elections in Romania," she continued.
Chief European Union diplomat Kaja Kallas rejected President Donald Trump's claim that the European Union was made to "screw" the United States on Sunday.
Kallas made the comment while speaking to CBS News' "Face the Nation," arguing the EU is fundamentally about maintaining peace.
"Europe is a peace project. You know, it was created so that we wouldn't have wars between the members of the European Union, and we haven't had any. And, of course, also to do things together, cooperate more," Kallas said.
"You know, coming from a country that joined the European Union 20 years ago. Then, we were actually, you know, pushed by the Americans, you know, [saying] you will not get into NATO, but Europe, the European Union, is something that you should join because it's, it's a good project also for transatlantic relations. So I was quite surprised to hear a comment like that," she added.
Kallas went on to affirm the wide base of support for Ukraine in Europe, and that she has been coordinating with French President Emanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
"The fight that Ukraine is having is not only about Ukraine sovereignty, but it's much, much broader. It's about freedom of the free world, really. It is about the world where international law applies and the world where might does not make right," she said.
The official went on to argue that the U.S. and Europe could grind the Russian war machine to a halt via economic pressure.
"We shouldn't overestimate the power of Russia and underestimate our own power," she argued. "We know that their economy is not doing well. I mean, their inflation is over 20%, their National Fund is almost completely depleted."
"They don't have the same revenues from gas and oil that they used to to fund the war machine. So actually, if we concentrate our efforts, we can put the pressure so that they would stop the war," she continued.
Kallas' comments come after Trump blasted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at a White House meeting on Friday. He insisted that Ukraine doesn't "have the cards" and must sue for peace rather than relying on an indefinite flow of aid from the U.S.
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In a speech to European leaders, Vice President JD Vance said the continent's recent censorship activities were a bigger threat to its existence than Russia.
"The threat that I worry the most about vis-à-vis Europe is not Russia, it's not China. It's not any other external actor," he said in an address at the Munich Security Conference.
"What I worry about is the threat from within the retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values, values shared with the United States of America."
Vance called out former European Commissioner Thierry Breton, who said in January that if the right wing German AfD party were to win elections in Germany, the results could go the way of Romania.
"These cavalier statements are shocking to American ears," said Vance.
"For years we've been told that everything we fund and support is in the name of our shared democratic values. Everything from our Ukraine policy to digital censorship is billed as a defense of democracy. But when we see European courts canceling elections and senior officials threatening to cancel others, we ought to ask whether we're holding ourselves to an appropriately high standard."
Romania annulled the results of its December presidential election, because President Klaus Iohannis declassified intelligence reports alleging a Russian influence campaign on social media to the benefit of Calin Georgescu, the dark horse candidate who won the most votes.
"You can believe it's wrong for Russia to buy social media advertisements to influence your elections. We certainly do. You can condemn it on the world stage, even. But if your democracy can be destroyed with a few hundred thousand dollars of digital advertising from a foreign country, then it wasn't very strong to begin with."
The vice president even called out the organizers of the Munich conference, who he said had "banned lawmakers representing populist parties on both the left and the right from participating in these conversations."
The conference barred the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) and the newly formed left-populist Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) for what MSC chair Christoph Heusgen described as a rejection of the conference's principle of "peace through dialogue." Heusgen said the tipping point was when lawmakers with the parties walked out of the room as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was addressing German parliament last June.
"To many of us on the other side of the Atlantic, it looks more and more like old entrenched interests hiding behind ugly Soviet-era words like 'misinformation' and ‘disinformation,’ who simply don't like the idea that somebody with an alternative viewpoint might express a different opinion or, God forbid, vote a different way, or even worse, win an election."
He then said Europe had forgotten the lessons of the Cold War and the Soviet Union's censorship policies.
"Within living memory of many of you in this room, the Cold War positioned defenders of democracy against much more tyrannical forces on this continent. And consider the side in that fight that censored dissidents, that closed churches, that canceled elections," Vance said.
"Unfortunately, when I look at Europe today, it's sometimes not so clear what happened to some of the Cold War's winners. I look to Brussels, where EU commissars warn citizens that they intend to shut down social media during times of civil unrest the moment they spot what they've judged to be ‘hateful content’ or to this very country where police have carried out raids against citizens suspected of posting anti-feminist comments online as part of ‘combating misogyny on the internet.’"
"The backslide away from conscience rights has placed the basic liberties of religious Britons, in particular, in the crosshairs."
Vance recounted Adam Smith Connor, who was found guilty in October of breaching the local government's Public Spaces Protection Order, after he stood outside an abortion facility nearly two years ago with his head bowed in silent prayer.
" I wish I could say that this was a fluke, a one-off, crazy example of a badly written law being enacted against a single person. But no," said Vance.
The U.K. law suggests that those within the buffer zone of 200 meters of an abortion clinic cannot attempt to influence someone's decision to access an abortion. Those who are in homes within the buffer zone cannot hang signs outside or shout anti-abortion messages that could be heard in range of the clinic.
Vance also called out Sweden, where Danish activist Rasmus Paludan was sentenced to four months in prison for burning copies of the Quran.
"Sweden's laws to supposedly protect free expression do not, in fact, 'grant,' and I'm quoting, ‘a free pass to do or say anything without risking offending the group that holds that belief,’" said Vance.
Vance's speech had veered away from what European leaders had been expecting to hear - details on President Donald Trump's plan for peace between Russia and Ukraine and how to strengthen the NATO alliance.
"I'm sure you all came here prepared to talk about how exactly you intend to increase defense spending over the next few years, in line with some new target," said Vance.
"I've heard a lot about what you need to defend yourselves from, and of course that's important. But what has seemed a little bit less clear to me, and certainly I think to many of the citizens of Europe, is what exactly it is that you're defending yourselves for."
The vice president went on: "What is the positive vision that animates this shared security compact that we all believe is so important? And I believe deeply that there is no security If you are afraid of the voices, the opinions and the conscience that guide your very own people."
"The crisis this continent faces right now, the crisis I believe we all face together, is one of our own making. If you're running in fear of your own voters, there is nothing America can do for you."
