{"id":429925,"date":"2026-04-28T23:40:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-28T16:40:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/market-news\/2026\/04\/eu-replaces-its-top-trade-official-following-deal-with-trump\/"},"modified":"2026-04-28T23:40:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-28T16:40:12","slug":"eu-replaces-its-top-trade-official-following-deal-with-trump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/market-news\/2026\/04\/eu-replaces-its-top-trade-official-following-deal-with-trump\/","title":{"rendered":"EU replaces its top trade official following deal with Trump"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>Earlier today Politico reported (and now the FT confirms) that Sabine Weyand, the Director-General for Trade at the European Commission has been fired.<\/p>\n<p>The big surprise of last year&#8217;s trade war to me was how quickly the EU caved. It was the one region with the size and clout to stand up to Trump and hit back with counter-tariffs but instead it quickly rolled over and accepted a 15% rate. Trump threatened 30-60% and the EU simply blinked and at the same time agreed to remove duties on most US industrial imports and certain &#8220;lower-sensitivity&#8221; agricultural products. <\/p>\n<p>It was a resounding win for Trump and today&#8217;s move notably comes after Mark Carney said that some countries were regretting making deals.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;A lot of countries rushed into deals with the U.S.. They weren\u2019t really<br \/>\nworth the paper they were written on,&#8221; Carney <a href=\"https:\/\/nationalpost.com\/news\/canada\/mark-carney-us-tariff-deals\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">said <\/a>in an interview.<\/p>\n<p>In late 2025, Weyand became a central figure in explaining the controversial &#8220;Turnberry Deal&#8221; (or the EU\u2013US tariff framework) struck between the EU and the Trump administration. Rather than a traditional negotiation, Weyand famously described the process as a strategic &#8220;stabilization&#8221; effort.<\/p>\n<p>In a candid admission to German media (specifically S\u00fcddeutsche Zeitung) and later the European Parliament, Weyand explained that the EU did not &#8220;negotiate&#8221; this deal in the traditional sense. Instead, they accepted it to prevent the US from:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<p>Abandoning Ukraine: Ensuring continued US engagement and security guarantees for Ukraine&#8217;s defense.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>Exit from NATO: Stabilizing the transatlantic security umbrella, which Weyand admitted the EU was still too dependent upon to risk a full-scale trade war.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Many Members of the European Parliament criticized Weyand\u2019s department for &#8220;capitulation,&#8221; but Weyand maintained that a &#8220;rules-based understanding&#8221; was better than the &#8220;unilateral shocks&#8221; the Trump administration originally planned.<\/p>\n<p>Ditte Juul J\u00f8rgensen is said to be her replacement.<\/p>\n<p>                            This article was written by Adam Button at investinglive.com.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Earlier today Politico reported (and now the FT confirms) that Sabine Weyand, the Director-General for Trade at the European Commission has been fired. The big surprise of last year&#8217;s trade war to me was how quickly the EU caved. It was the one region with the size and clout to stand up to Trump and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":216,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[86],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-429925","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-market-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429925","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/216"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=429925"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429925\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=429925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=429925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=429925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}