The EU is far from united on the trade deal - French political leaders openly hostile, German Chancellor Merz supportive but industry unhappy, Hungary's PM Organ summed it up: “Donald Trump ate Ursula von der Leyen for breakfast.” Meanwhile, many of the details still need to be hammered out - we can assume the EU will give in on everything, 'cos it has shown it needs a deal. And then there’s the legal draft as well as its translation into all EU languages, each of which could take months. Then the European Commission submits the proposal to the European Parliament and the Council of Europe for ratification, which could also take months. And if the trade agreement is determined to impact national environmental standards, labour laws or investment protection (which is likely), it will also need to be ratified by each of the 27 states. What happens if at least one says no? Is the next step secession from the Union? 😕 After the initial relief, European markets seem to be realizing that it's a bad deal - better than a trade war, sure, but still a blow, and the ripple effects could be serious. Here's the DAX German stock index today:

I wrote about this and a lot more in today's newsletter -