Trump Lies Through His Teeth — Yet Again

5 August 2025, by Eric Zuesse. (All of my recent articles can be seen here.)

On July 24th, Trump, speaking in front of top American AI investors, at a “Winning the AI Race” event, told them:

We just made a deal with the European Union where they're going to pay the United States of America 100% of the cost of all military equipment. They're going to ship it to the European Union and then they'll distribute it, and much of it will go to Ukraine. It's been a long time since you've heard those words because we're in for $350 billion. But now we send it to Europe, and Europe pays and they were great.

On August 5th, I Googled “Is the Trump and EU armaments deal real?” and atop their finds was their (pro-U.S.-imperialist) “AI Overview” generated by Google’s pro-U.S.-imperialistic algorithms, and saying:

In the context of the recent trade agreement between the US and the EU, there appears to be a disconnect between the statements made by President Trump and those of European officials concerning an armaments deal.

Specifically, while President Trump has claimed the EU will purchase "hundreds of billions" worth of US military equipment, European officials have clarified that no concrete agreement on arms procurement was part of the trade negotiations. They emphasize that arms procurement falls under national competence, not the European Commission's purview, and that any potential increase in defense spending benefiting US firms would be due to factors like the quality of US equipment, not a specific agreement in the trade deal.

It is important to note that discussions regarding military equipment sales to European NATO allies for transfer to Ukraine are indeed taking place and some actions have been taken in that regard. For instance, some European countries are reportedly buying US military equipment for Ukraine as part of a NATO-coordinated effort, according to The Wall Street Journal. The Netherlands has announced its intent to purchase US weapons, including Patriot parts and missiles, for Ukraine under new Trump-NATO initiatives, according to Euronews.com. These purchases are funded by European governments. However, this is separate from the claims made about a direct EU-wide arms deal within the trade agreement itself.

Therefore, while there are ongoing efforts related to European countries acquiring US military equipment, particularly for Ukraine, President Trump's claim of a broad, multi-billion dollar EU-US armaments deal seems to be an overstatement based on the available information.

Their main sources were:

Politico’s July 28th “Less than meets the eye to Trump’s claim of ‘vast’ arms sales from EU trade deal: The EU already buys almost two-thirds of its weapons from the U.S.; there’s little chance the new trade deal will shift that by much.”

EuroNews’s July 29th “EU and US spin conflicting versions of trade deal, sowing confusion” was more comprehensive, and had the EU contradicting Trump by saying that not only were his promises that the EU would buy more U.S.-manufactured weapons false, but that regarding “Digital and agricultural barriers” (i.e, the EU’s currently far higher regulations to protect the public’s health, safety and personal privacy), the EU made zero concessions to Trump — they will apply all of those to all imports, just as they always have — no concessions were made, at all, to increase American imports into the EU.

What Trump DID get was the EU’s having zero tariffs on U.S.-made pproducts, while accepting that Trump is now tariffing (taxing) at a 15% rate imports from the EU.

The net result will be that EU nations will re-allocate much of their current U.S. sourcing away to other countries that DON’T slap export tariffs on their goods. U.S. employment will decrease.

As America’s National Public Radio reported on August 4th, “The Budget Lab at Yale University estimated last week that the average cost of Trump's tariffs to the American household would be $2,400 this year, with clothes and textiles likely to see the biggest effects. And contrary to Trump's repeated claims that tariffs will boost the economy, experts believe the economy will get weaker, with higher inflation and slower job growth.” To see how Yale calculated that, just click onto the “would be $2,400,” and it breaks down the “Overall Price Level & Distributional Effects,” and the effects on “Commodity Prices,” and the “Real GDP Effects,” and the “Labor Market Effects,” and the “Fiscal Effects”; and all of them are net harms to the American people, the U.S. economy, and also (I would add) to all OTHER countries, especially because global supply chains are going to be disrupted for years by these tariff-changes. The arrogant and hyper-aggressive stupidity of this extraordinarily dangerous psychopath — America’s first-ever billionaire President (who is, by now, transparently concerned only about himself and other billionaires) — is harming all countries. He’s even worse than his predecessors in the White House this Century. At least since 2001 (if not since 1980), this country has been an unmitigated curse upon the entire world, getting even worse as time progresses.

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Investigative historian Eric Zuesse’s latest book, AMERICA’S EMPIRE OF EVIL: Hitler’s Posthumous Victory, and Why the Social Sciences Need to Change, is about how America took over the world after World War II in order to enslave it to U.S.-and-allied billionaires. Their cartels extract the world’s wealth by control of not only their ‘news’ media but the social ‘sciences’ — duping the public.