What Rump says:

“Well, then they pay tariffs of 35%,” Trump told CNBC on Tuesday, when asked what action he would take if the EU failed to uphold its side of the EU-US trade deal.

As part of the agreement, most EU exporters will face a flat 15% US tariff – half the 30% previously threatened by Trump. In return, the EU pledged to lower its own tariffs on various goods and to boost purchases of US energy by $750 billion over the remaining three and a half years of Trump’s presidency.

“They brought down their tariffs. So they paid $600 billion. And because of that, I reduced their tariffs from 30% down to 15%,” Trump said. “And a couple of countries came: ‘How come [the] EU is paying less than us?’ And I said, well, because they gave me $600 billion. And that’s a gift; that’s not like, you know, a loan, by the way.”

Oh, suddenly you want to play fair?

What the EU says:

Commission officials have claimed that the deal’s purchasing and investment commitments, which are widely considered to be unrealistic and cannot be legally enforced by Brussels, are only “projections” that are based on the “very clear intentions” of private EU companies.

An official White House account of the deal also states that the EU has committed to purchase “significant amounts of US military equipment” – a claim rejected by Brussels.

An EU official said on Tuesday that a forthcoming EU-US joint statement, which is “90-95% ready”, will offer “clarity” on many of the deal’s details, but did not say that this would resolve the disagreement over military purchases.

I am certainly awaiting that joint statement, because the current versions are as far away from each other as when I ask my parents why they got divorced. And I know which side is more responsible for that discrepancy.

I swear, if the EU decides to swallow another turd…