EU/TRADE DEALS/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “When Jean-Claude Juncker arrived at the White House on Wednesday [7-26-18], the European Commission president had no idea how the meeting with President Donald Trump would end. When asked on his flight from Brussels whether he was ready, after having pored through piles of documents stacked in blue folders, he smiled and said: ‘No. We’ll have to see how it goes.’ Once Mr. Juncker entered the Oval Office, it was clear Mr. Trump was in a mood to negotiate, said a senior European Union official who was present. Mr. Trump, who typically entertains a question or two from reporters during Oval Office visits, took none, looking instead to dive into discussions with the visiting delegation from the EU’s executive arm. What followed between the two leaders ushered in a potentially significant de-escalation of trade tensions between the U.S. and EU, after months in which the Trump administration had applied tariffs on European steel, and threatened more. The resulting agreement was vague, but the two sides agreed to pursue a range of possibilities—including increased U.S. exports of natural gas and soybeans—that might address the trans-Atlantic trade imbalance.”
–Valentina Pop and Vivian Salama, “Juncker’s Trade Pitch to Trump: ‘I Can Be Stupid, as Well’,” The Wall Street Journal, July 26, 2018 1:08 pm