The Supreme Court ruling that stripped President Donald Trump of his primary tariff authority did not just shake up American trade policy. It landed in Brussels like a disruption the European Union had not fully anticipated, and within 48 hours the bloc's executive arm made its position clear: the terms already agreed to are not up for renegotiation.

"A deal is a deal," the European Commission said in a statement Sunday. "As the United States' largest trading partner, the EU expects the U.S. to honor its commitments set out in the Joint Statement — just as the EU stands by its commitments."

The statement was notably sharper than the Commission's initial response on Friday, which said only that it was studying the court's decision and remaining in contact with Washington. A day later, the tone had changed.

The Deal That's Now in Question

The arrangement at the center of the dispute was reached last July, after months of trade tensions that had threatened to escalate into a full-blown transatlantic trade war. Under the terms of that agreement, the United States agreed to cap tariffs on most EU exports at 15 percent, with carve-outs for certain sectors. The EU, in turn, agreed to eliminate tariffs on American industrial goods, grant preferential access to U.S. agricultural and seafood exports, and increase purchases of American military and defense equipment. It also withdrew a threat to retaliate with higher levies of its own.

EU-U.S. trade in goods and services was valued at roughly 1.7 trillion euros — approximately $2 trillion — in 2024, averaging around 4.6 billion euros a day, according to EU statistics. Europe's biggest exports to the United States include pharmaceuticals, cars, aircraft, chemicals, and wine and spirits. The U.S. sends the bloc oil and gas, aerospace products, medical equipment, and professional services including cloud infrastructure and payment systems.

The Supreme Court's ruling, which found that Trump had exceeded his authority by using the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to impose sweeping global tariffs, threw the status of those arrangements into question. Trump responded by announcing a 10 percent across-the-board tariff on Friday, then raised it to 15 percent on Saturday under Section 122 of the 1974 Trade Act — a separate legal authority that allows the president to impose tariffs for up to 150 days without congressional approval in cases of a "large and serious" balance of payments deficit.

The Commission's position is that those new measures must not push tariffs on EU goods beyond what was already negotiated. "EU products must continue to benefit from the most competitive treatment, with no increases in tariffs beyond the clear and all-inclusive ceiling previously agreed," it said.

The U.S. Response

U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, appearing on multiple Sunday news programs, said the deals are intact and that Washington intends to stand by them. He said he had spoken with his EU counterpart over the weekend and had not heard anyone indicate the arrangement was off.

"The deals were not premised on whether or not the emergency tariff litigation would rise or fall," Greer said. "That's why they signed these deals even while the litigation was pending."

He added that the administration expects its trading partners to hold to the same standard. "We're going to stand by them. We expect our partners to stand by them."

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent echoed that position, saying on a Sunday morning program that foreign trading partners "like the tariff deals" and that they would not be changed.

Greer also indicated that the administration would pursue new trade investigations under Section 301 of the Trade Act and Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act — legal authorities that have withstood prior court challenges. He said probes were already open against Brazil and China and that new investigations targeting industrial excess capacity and rice subsidies would cover much of Asia. Whether existing bilateral deals would shield countries from those future tariffs was not immediately clear.

Parliament Moves to Pause Ratification

The response inside the European Parliament was more pointed. Bernd Lange, who chairs the Parliament's trade committee, announced Sunday that he would propose suspending the ratification process for the EU-U.S. deal at an emergency committee meeting Monday — at least until the administration provided written clarity on where its trade policy now stands.

"Pure customs chaos on the part of the U.S. government," Lange wrote on social media. "Nobody can make sense of it anymore — only unanswered questions and growing uncertainty for the EU and other U.S. trading partners."

The Greens also called for a delay. The Parliament had been aiming to ratify the deal by the end of February, though it had already paused the process once before — earlier this year, after Trump made statements about annexing Greenland, an autonomous territory of EU member state Denmark.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said France was analyzing whether the deal was still valid at all. "One may be permitted to doubt that," Barrot said, adding that France would "take the necessary measures in response" as needed.

What Comes Next

European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde, also speaking Sunday, framed the core problem in straightforward terms. "You want to know the rules of the road before you get in the car," she said. "It's the same with trade. It's the same with investment."

EU Trade Commissioner Maros Sefcovic spoke with Greer and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick on Saturday. The Commission said it will continue working toward lowering tariffs as provided for in the joint statement and that its priority is a "stable, predictable transatlantic trading environment."

India separately postponed trade talks with Washington this week, citing similar concerns about the uncertainty created by the shifting U.S. policy.

The fundamental question now is whether the deal negotiated last summer holds as the legal architecture beneath it has been dismantled and rebuilt in a matter of days. The Commission has been explicit that it considers the ceiling already set to be binding. Washington says the deals remain in place. What neither side has answered yet is what happens if those two positions stop being compatible.