President Donald Trump's trade agreement with the European Union will be "a great deal for Americans," Sen. Pete Ricketts, R-Neb., told Newsmax on Wednesday.
Trump and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Sunday announced a sweeping trade deal that imposes 15% tariffs on most European goods, warding off Trump's threat of a 30% rate if no deal had been reached by Aug. 1.
"President Trump is continuing to work to level the playing field for America around the world," Ricketts told "Wake Up America" co-hosts Sharla McBride and Marc Lotter. "The EU was one of the most egregious offenders when it came to trade deals. I saw that personally when I was a governor and went through on trade missions. They took advantage of our systems, they blocked our agricultural products.
"President Trump in his first term warned them about buying Russian energy. Now the Europeans are finally coming around to say, Hey, we need to buy American energy so we're not dependent on Russia. They've got a dictator, [Vladimir] Putin, who has started another ground war in Europe.
"This is really, really a good deal for America. That's really going to help us with so many different things, digital assets and everything like that. This is going to be a great, great deal for America."
The trade deal between the U.S. and EU will enable American farmers, ranchers, fishermen, and manufacturers to increase U.S. exports, expand business opportunities, and help reduce the goods trade deficit with Europe, the White House said in a press release.
"When I was there [in Europe] again, one of the things we saw is that they have nontariff trade barriers to block our biotechnology. They would put limits on how much beef, for example, they would import," Ricketts said. "The U.K. just agreed to take 13,000 metric tons of our beef.
"We've got the best tasting beef in the world. It's the highest quality. To put that in perspective, the U.K. agreed to do that with, what, 75 million people? The EU with 449 million people, had the same level of quotas of only allowing 13,000 tons of beef in. So, you can see there's lots of opportunity to be able to open up these markets and get more of our products over there. They're the highest quality in the world."
Ricketts pointed out that Trump, in just six months, has accomplished more in U.S. trade than former President Joe Biden did in his four-year term.
"The Biden administration was the first administration since [former President] Jimmy Carter not to cut a trade deal. And so we started running agricultural trade deficits. That's just ridiculous. We're the breadbasket of the world. We always ran an agricultural surplus, but not under Biden," Ricketts said.
"Now President Trump is getting these markets open for us. So, I expect to see that this will start turning around and we'll be able to start selling more of our agricultural products overseas, and that will actually help us run a trade surplus again."
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Charlie McCarthy ✉
Charlie McCarthy, a writer/editor at Newsmax, has nearly 40 years of experience covering news, sports, and politics.
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