
Oil prices fall as tariff deadline looms
Brent crude futures were down 49 cents, or 0.7%, to $68.72 a barrel at 0915 GMT. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude was at $66.60 a barrel, down 60 cents, or 0.9%.
The August WTI contract expires on Tuesday and the more active September contract was down 47 cents, or 0.7%, to $65.48 a barrel.
"Oil prices fell for a third straight session ... as urgency builds in trade negotiations between the U.S. and its partners," Soojin Kim, an analyst at bank MUFG, said in a note.
The Trump administration has set an August 1 deadline for countries to secure trade deals or face steep tariffs.
The EU is exploring a broader set of possible counter-measures against the United States as prospects for an acceptable trade agreement with Washington fade, according to EU diplomats.
The U.S. has threatened to impose a 30% tariff on EU imports if a deal is not reached.
A weaker dollar has limited some losses for crude as buyers using other currencies are paying relatively less.
Prices have slipped "as trade war concerns offset the support by a softer (U.S. dollar)," IG market analyst Tony Sycamore wrote in a note.
Stronger distillate profit margins due to low inventories are also supporting crude prices.
"The move lower might have seen more momentum if it were not for the continued performance in distillates which continues to be aided by low stocks," PVM Oil analyst John Evans said in a note.
Meanwhile, a Reuters poll of analysts showed U.S. crude oil inventories likely fell by about 600,000 barrels in the week to July 18.
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BBC News
25 minutes ago
- BBC News
EU and US agree trade deal, with 15% tariffs for European exports to America
The United States and European Union have reached a trade deal, ending a months-long standoff between two of the world's key economic make-or-break negotiations between President Donald Trump and European Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen in Scotland, the pair agreed on a blanket US tariff on all EU goods of 15%. That is half the 30% import tax rate Trump had threatened to implement starting on Friday. Trump said the 27-member bloc would open its markets to US exporters with zero per cent tariffs on certain der Leyen also hailed the deal, saying it would bring stability for both allies, who together account for almost a third of global trade. Trump has threatened tariffs against major US trade partners in a bid to reorder the global economy and trim the American trade well as the EU, he has also struck tariff agreements with the UK, Japan, Indonesia and Vietnam, although he has not achieved his goal of "90 deals in 90 days".Sunday's deal was announced after private talks between Trump and Von der Leyen at his Turnberry golf course in South - who is on a five-day visit to Scotland - said following a brief meeting with the European Commission president: "We have reached a deal. It's a good deal for everybody.""It's going to bring us closer together," he der Leyen also hailed it as a "huge deal", after "tough negotiations".Under the agreement, Trump said the EU would boost its investment in the US by $600bn (£446bn), purchase hundreds of billions of dollars of American military equipment and spend $750bn on investment in American liquified natural gas, oil and nuclear fuels would, Von der Leyen said, help reduce European reliance on Russian power sources."I want to thank President Trump personally for his personal commitment and his leadership to achieve this breakthrough," she said."He is a tough negotiator, but he is also a dealmaker."The US president also said a 50% tariff he has implemented on steel and aluminium globally would stay in sides can paint this agreement as something of a the EU, the tariffs could have been worse: it is not as good as the UK's 10% tariff rate, but is the same as the 15% rate that Japan the US it equates to the expectation of roughly $90bn of tariff revenue into government coffers – based on last year's trade figures, plus there's hundreds of billions of dollars of investment now due to come into the US. How are trade deals actually negotiated?They made America's clothing. Now they are getting punished for itIn pictures: President Trump's private visit to Scotland Trade in goods between the EU and US totalled about $975.9bn last year. Last year the US imported about $606bn in goods from the EU and exported around $ imbalance, or trade deficit, is a sticking point for Trump. He says trade relationships like this mean the US is "losing".If he had followed through on tariffs against Europe, import taxes would have been levied on products from Spanish pharmaceuticals to Italian leather, German electronics and French EU had said it was prepared to retaliate with tariffs on US goods including car parts, Boeing planes and Prime Minister Keir Starmer plans his own meeting with Trump at Turnberry on will be in Aberdeen on Tuesday, where his family has another golf course and is opening a third next president and his sons plan to help cut the ribbon on the new fairway.


Reuters
25 minutes ago
- Reuters
Out-gunned Europe accepts least-worst US trade deal
LONDON, July 27 (Reuters) - In the end, Europe found it lacked the leverage to pull Donald Trump's America into a trade pact on its terms and so has signed up to a deal it can just about stomach - albeit one that is clearly skewed in the U.S.'s favour. As such, Sunday's agreement on a blanket 15% tariff after a months-long stand-off is a reality check on the aspirations of the 27-country European Union to become an economic power able to stand up to the likes of the United States or China. The cold shower is all the more bracing given that the EU has long portrayed itself as an export superpower and champion of rules-based commerce for the benefit both of its own soft power and the global economy as a whole. For sure, the new tariff that will now be applied is a lot more digestible than the 30% "reciprocal" tariff which Trump threatened to invoke in a few days. While it should ensure Europe avoids recession, it will likely keep its economy in the doldrums: it sits somewhere between two tariff scenarios the European Central Bank last month forecast would mean 0.5-0.9% economic growth this year compared to just over 1% in a trade tension-free environment. But this is nonetheless a landing point that would have been scarcely imaginable only months ago in the pre-Trump 2.0 era, when the EU along with much of the world could count on U.S. tariffs averaging out at around 1.5%. Even when Britain agreed a baseline tariff of 10% with the United States back in May, EU officials were adamant they could do better and - convinced the bloc had the economic heft to square up to Trump - pushed for a "zero-for-zero" tariff pact. It took a few weeks of fruitless talks with their U.S. counterparts for the Europeans to accept that 10% was the best they could get and a few weeks more to take the same 15% baseline which the United States agreed with Japan last week. "The EU does not have more leverage than the U.S., and the Trump administration is not rushing things," said one senior official in a European capital who was being briefed on last week's negotiations as they closed in around the 15% level. That official and others pointed to the pressure from Europe's export-oriented businesses to clinch a deal and so ease the levels of uncertainty starting to hit businesses from Finland's Nokia ( opens new tab to Swedish steelmaker SSAB ( opens new tab. "We were dealt a bad hand. This deal is the best possible play under the circumstances," said one EU diplomat. "Recent months have clearly shown how damaging uncertainty in global trade is for European businesses." That imbalance - or what the trade negotiators have been calling "asymmetry" - is manifest in the final deal. Not only is it expected that the EU will now call off any retaliation and remain open to U.S. goods on existing terms, but it has also pledged $600 billion of investment in the United States. The time-frame for that remains undefined, as do other details of the accord for now. As talks unfolded, it became clear that the EU came to the conclusion it had more to lose from all-out confrontation. The retaliatory measures it threatened totalled some 93 billion euros - less than half its U.S. goods trade surplus of nearly 200 billion euros. True, a growing number of EU capitals were also ready to envisage wide-ranging anti-coercion measures that would have allowed the bloc to target the services trade in which the United States had a surplus of some $75 billion last year. But even then, there was no clear majority for targeting the U.S. digital services which European citizens enjoy and for which there are scant homegrown alternatives - from Netflix (NFLX.O), opens new tab to Uber (UBER.N), opens new tab to Microsoft (MSFT.O), opens new tab cloud services. It remains to be seen whether this will encourage European leaders to accelerate the economic reforms and diversification of trading allies to which they have long paid lip service but which have been held back by national divisions. Describing the deal as a painful compromise that was an "existential threat" for many of its members, Germany's BGA wholesale and export association said it was time for Europe to reduce its reliance on its biggest trading partner. "Let's look on the past months as a wake-up call," said BGA President Dirk Jandura. "Europe must now prepare itself strategically for the future - we need new trade deals with the biggest industrial powers of the world."


BBC News
25 minutes ago
- BBC News
Will there be a bank holiday after England won Euro 2025?
Downing Street has no plans for a bank holiday to mark the Lionesses' Euro 2025 win, the BBC made history on Saturday as they retained their title against World Champions Spain after a dramatic penalty shootout in Basel. A homecoming parade will be held in central London on Tuesday, with an open-top bus tour culminating in a ceremony outside Buckingham the government appears set to confirm there will be no bank holiday to mark the occasion, in line with what happened when England won the same tournament two years ago. Calls for a bank holiday after a major football success are not new, but none were held when England's men's team won the World Cup in 1966, nor when the Lionesses won the Euros in Keir has previously suggested he would be open to giving people a day off work to celebrate an England win, saying at the time that the 2022 victory should be "marked with a proper day of celebration".When the Lionesses reached the World Cup final against Spain in 2023, Sir Keir said "there should be a celebratory bank holiday if the Lionesses bring it home".Downing Street will likely have an eye on the economic cost of announcing an extra bank modelling has previously put the cost at £1.36bn, while accountancy firm PwC estimated the figure would be closer to £ Keir watched on from the stands as England clinched a win on penalties, after the two sides held each other at 1-1 after 90 minutes and extra kicks from Alex Greenwood, Niamh Charles and Chloe Kelly, as well as two huge saves from goalkeeper Hannah Hampton, were enough to see England emerge from the tense match prime minister described the team as "history makers" after the full-time whistle, adding: "You dug deep when it mattered most and you've made the nation proud."