EDINBURGH: Donald Trump is meeting Sunday with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, taking a break from golfing in Scotland to discuss trade as both sides seek an agreement on tariff rates now that the White House’s deadline to impose stiff tariff rates is looming.
Trump played golf Saturday at his course in Turnberry on the southwest coast of Scotland and is expected to hit the links again frequently during his five-day visit. On Tuesday, he’ll be in Aberdeen, in northeast Scotland, where his family has another golf course and is opening a third next month.
Trump and his son Eric are planning to help cut the ribbon on the new course, where public tee times starting Aug. 13 are already on offer.
The visit with von der Leyen is expected to be behind closed doors and few further details have been released.
Leaving the White House on Friday, Trump said “we have a 50-50 chance, maybe less than that, but a 50-50 chance of making a deal with the EU.” He said the deal would have to “buy down” the currently scheduled tariff rate of 30 percent on the bloc of 27 member states.
Later, von der Leyen posted on X that, “Following a good call” with Trump, the pair had ”agreed to meet in Scotland on Sunday to discuss transatlantic trade relations, and how we can keep them strong.”
The US and EU seemed close to reaching a deal earlier this month, but Trump instead threatened a 30 percent tariff rate on the bloc of nations. Still, Trump’s original deadline for beginning such tariffs has already passed, and is now delayed until at least Friday.
Flying to Scotland to enjoy his golf courses hasn’t stopped the president from talking trade.
After going to Turnberry to play nine holes, have lunch, then play nine more, Trump posted that he’d block any trade deals between the US and Cambodia and Thailand since the two southeast Asian countries remain locked in violent clashes in long-disputed border areas.
Trump wrote that he spoke with Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet and Phumtham Wechayachai, the acting prime minister of Thailand, to call for a ceasefire.
“I am trying to simplify a complex situation!” he wrote on Truth Social after disclosing his conversation with the Cambodian leader. After speaking with Wechayachai, Trump said both countries want peace and added: “Ceasefire, Peace, and Prosperity seems to be a natural.”
The actual likelihood of a deal with the EU, meanwhile, remains to be seen.
Trump recently said he thought the odds of reaching a framework with Japan was 25 percent — but the US and Japan subsequently announced an agreement this past week.
The president also bragged earlier in his term that he would leverage constant threats of steep US tariffs around the globe to negotiate better rates and shrink trade deficits with some of Washington’s key allies. But, so far, that effort has fallen well short of expectations, meaning the onus may be on Trump to be able to announce an agreement with a bloc as key to global commerce as the EU.
Trump is also set to meet Monday in Scotland with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, after the two announced a trade framework in May and a larger agreement last month during the G7 in Canada. Trump says that deal is concluded and that the pair will discuss other matters — though the White House has suggested it still needs some polishing.
Without an EU deal, the bloc said it was prepared to retaliate with tariffs on hundreds of American products, ranging from beef and auto parts to beer and Boeing airplanes.
If Trump follows through on his threat of tariffs against Europe, it could make everything from French cheese and Italian leather goods to German electronics and Spanish pharmaceuticals more expensive in the US
Trump’s meeting with a key European official comes as his tariff deadline nears
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Trump’s meeting with a key European official comes as his tariff deadline nears
- The US and EU seemed close to reaching a deal earlier this month, but Trump instead threatened a 30 percent tariff rate on the bloc of nations
Afghanistan says it thwarted Pakistani airstrike on Bagram Air Base as fighting enters fourth day
- The fighting has been the most severe between the neighbors for years
- Pakistan accuses Taliban government of harboring militant groups that stage attacks against it
KABUL: Afghanistan thwarted attempted airstrikes on Bagram Air Base, the former US military base north of Kabul, authorities said Sunday, while cross-border fighting between Pakistan and Afghanistan stretched into a fourth day.
The fighting has been the most severe between the neighbors for years, with Pakistan declaring that it’s in “open war” with Afghanistan.
The conflict has alarmed the international community, particularly as the area is one where other militant organizations, including Al-Qaeda and the Daesh group, still have a presence and have been trying to resurface.
Pakistan accuses Afghanistan’s Taliban government of harboring militant groups that stage attacks against it and also of allying with its archrival India.
Border clashes in October killed dozens of soldiers, civilians and suspected militants until a Qatari-mediated ceasefire ended the intense fighting. But several rounds of peace talks in Turkiye in November failed to produce a lasting agreement, and the two sides have occasionally traded fire since then.
On Sunday, the police headquarters of Parwan province, where Bagram is located, said in a statement that several Pakistani military jets had entered Afghan airspace “and attempted to bomb Bagram Air Base” at around 5 a.m.
The statement said Afghan forces responded with “anti-aircraft and missile defense systems” and had managed to thwart the attack.
There was no immediate response from Pakistan’s military or government regarding Kabul’s claim of attempted airstrikes on Bagram or the ongoing fighting.
Bagram was the United States’ largest military base in Afghanistan. It was taken over by the Taliban as they swept across the country and took control in the wake of the chaotic US withdrawal from the country in 2021. Last year, US President Donald Trump suggested he wanted to reestablish a US presence at the base.
The current fighting began when Afghanistan launched a broad cross-border attack on Thursday night, saying it was in retaliation for Pakistani airstrikes the previous Sunday.
Pakistan had said its airstrike had targeted the outlawed Pakistani Taliban, also known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP. Afghanistan had said only civilians were killed.
The TTP militant group, which is separate but closely allied with Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban, operates inside Pakistan, where it has been blamed for hundreds of deaths in bombings and other attacks over the years.
Pakistan accuses Afghanistan’s Taliban government of providing a safe haven within Afghanistan for the TTP, an accusation that Afghanistan denies.
After Thursday’s Afghan attack, Pakistani Defense Minister Khawaja Mohammad Asif declared that “our patience has now run out. Now it is open war between us.”
In the ongoing fighting, each side claims to have killed hundreds of the other side’s forces — and both governments put their own casualties at drastically lower numbers.
Two Pakistani security officials said that Pakistani ground forces were still in control on Sunday of a key Afghan post and a 32-square-kilometer area in the southern Zhob sector near Kandahar province, after having seized it during fighting Friday. The captured post and surrounding area remain under Pakistani control, they added. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity, because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly.
In Kabul, the Afghan government rejected Pakistan’s claims. Deputy government spokesman Hamdullah Fitrat called the reports “baseless.”
Afghan officials said that fighting had continued overnight and into Sunday in the border areas.
The police command spokesman for Nangarhar province, Said Tayyeb Hammad, said that anti-aircraft missiles were used from the provincial capital, Jalalabad, and surrounding areas on Pakistani fighter jets flying overhead Sunday morning.
Defense Ministry spokesman Enayatulah Khowarazmi said that Afghan forces had launched counterattacks with snipers across the border from Nangarhar, Paktia, Khost and Kandahar provinces overnight. He said that two Pakistani drones had been shot down and dozens of Pakistani soldiers had been killed.
Fitrat said that Pakistani drone attacks hit civilian homes in Nangarhar province late Saturday, killing a woman and a child, while mortar fire killed another civilian when it hit a home in Paktia province.
There was no immediate response to the claims from Pakistani officials.
