Crops tailor-made using new gene-splicing techniques should face fewer regulations than genetically modified organisms, EU negotiators agreed Thursday.  Critics are calling it a GMO rebrand; proponents say they are bringing science back in style. The late-night negotiations — dragged across the finish line with the help of the European Parliament’s far right — capped years of haggling over how to ease the path for a new generation of gene-editing technologies developed since 2001, when the EU’s notoriously strict regulations on GMOs were adopted. The deal’s backers tout NGT’s potential to breed climate-resilient plants that need less space and fertilizers to grow, and they argue the EU is already behind global competitors using the technology. But critics fear the EU is opening the door to GMOs and giving too much power to major seed corporations.   The agreement opens the door to “unlabelled — yet patented — GM crops and foods, boosting corporate market power while undermining the rights of farmers and consumers,” warned Franziska Achterberg of Save Our Seeds, an NGO opposing GMOs, calling the deal a “complete sell-out.” INNOVATION VS. CAPITULATION European lawmakers, however, were responding to fears that outdated GMO rules were holding back progress on more recent genomic tweaks with a lighter touch — and throttling innovations worth trillions of euros.  Currently, most plants edited using new precision breeding technology — which can involve reordering their DNA, or inserting genes from the same plant or species — are covered by the same strict rules governing GMOs that contain foreign DNA.  The deal struck by the EU’s co-legislators creates two classes for these more recent techniques. “NGT1” crops — plants that have only been modified using new tech to a limited extent and are thus considered equivalent to naturally occurring strains — would be eligible for less stringent regulations. In contrast, “NGT2” plants, which have had more genetic changes and traditional GMOs will continue to face the same rules that have been in place for over 20 years.  Speaking before the final round of negotiations, Danish Agriculture Minister Jacob Jensen argued that the bloc needs to have NGTs in its toolbox if it wants to compete with China and the U.S., which are already making use of the new tech.  The deal “is about giving European farmers a fair chance to keep up” echoed center-right MEP Jessica Polfjärd, the lead negotiator on the Parliament’s side of the deal. She added that the technology will allow for the bloc to “produce more yield on less land, reduce the use of pesticides, and plant crops that can resist climate change.” Polfjärd had struggled to keep MEPs on the same page even as the bill advanced into interinstitutional negotiations. Persistent objections from left-wing lawmakers, including a key Socialist, forced her to embrace support of lawmakers from the far-right Patriots for Europe, breaking the cordon sanitaire.  Martin Häusling, the Green parliamentary negotiator, called the result miserable, saying it gives a “carte blanche for the use of new genetic engineering in plants” that threatens GMO-free agriculture.  DAVID AND GOLIATH In a hard-won victory for industry, the final legislation allows for NGT crops to be patented.  For Matthias Berninger, executive vice president at the global biotech giant Bayer, it’s just good business. “When we talk about startup culture in Europe … we also need to provide reasonable intellectual property protections,” he said in an interview. Yet safeguards meant to prevent patent-holders from accumulating too much market power don’t go far enough for Arche Noah. The NGO advocating for seed diversity in Europe, warned of a “slow-motion collapse of independent breeding, seed-diversity and farmer autonomy” if the deal makes it to law as is. They have MEP Christophe Clergeau, the Parliament’s Social-Democrat negotiator who led the last-ditch resistance.  In an interview on Thursday morning, he gave it five to 10 years before small breeders have disappeared from the bloc and farmers are “totally dependent” on the likes of Bayer and other huge companies. (Berninger said Bayer doesn’t want to inhibit small breeders by enforcing patents on them.) The deal now needs to be endorsed by the Parliament and the Council of the EU before the new rules are adopted. At the end of the day, it’s up to consumers to pass judgment, DG SANTE’s food safety and innovation chief Klaus Berend said Thursday, appearing at the POLITICO Sustainable Future Summit directly before the late-night negotiations began.  “We know that in Europe, the general attitude toward genetically modified organisms and anything around it is rather negative,” he cautioned. The key question for new genomic techniques is “how will they be accepted by consumers?” Their acceptance, Berend added, “is not a given.” Rebecca Holland contributed to this report.

CARDIFF, Wales — At the edge of a sprawling wheat field on the outskirts of Cardiff, arable farmer Richard Anthony sticks a shovel in the ground and offers up a fistful of soil for a sniff.  “The first thing [I do when] I walk into a field: I catch a handful of soil,” he says. “[The] first thing I do is smell it, to see if it smells healthy.” His mind is on climate change. The clump in his palm is indeed healthy — but it’s dry. It comes at the tail end of an unusually hot spring. Anthony and his wife, Lyn, are planting crops in increasingly short “weather windows,” dodging the wet days of the previous fall. “It does worry me,” he told POLITICO, acres of wheat plants swaying behind him. “But we, as farmers, have always had to adapt. And we’re having to adapt to climate change.” Farmers like the Anthonys are looking for guidance from the Senedd — the Labour-led devolved Welsh parliament down the road in Cardiff Bay. “Farming is seen as the biggest problem with climate change, and we’re not. We’re the only industry that can actually do something about it,” Anthony said. But Welsh ministers’ key environmental plans are in disarray, delayed for over a year after farmers angrily rejected proposals they say would hit jobs and livelihoods. Annoying farmers is bad news for Labour in Wales, a country where 90 percent of land is given over to agriculture. And it has consequences in Westminster, too, for a U.K. government that can’t afford another political bloody nose. Welsh national elections next May will be a crucial mid-term litmus test for the appeal of Keir Starmer’s embattled Labour. The 2026 Senedd vote is seen by party leaders in London “as a staging post between now and [the general election in] 2029,” said one Welsh union boss in February. Labour is going backward in Wales.  Welsh polls published Tuesday show Labour, in charge at the Senedd since 1999, dropping to third place, losing support to both populists Reform UK and nationalists Plaid Cymru. The party is being punished, experts say, for its own perceived inertia and a far too cozy relationship with Westminster. “The Welsh government are in a very difficult situation, in that both they are unpopular as incumbents and they’re also paying a price for the unpopularity of the U.K. Labour government,” said Jac Larner, a politics lecturer at Cardiff University. “So at the moment there is a general resistance, I think, to taking any tough decisions.”  THE CLIMATE MOMENT Faltering climate policy contributes to the sense that Welsh ministers are “losing perceptions of competence,” Larner argued. The challenge is substantial. Within the next decade, agriculture could become Wales’ largest source of emissions. To hit a U.K.-wide target of net zero by 2050, most emissions cuts will have to come from high-polluting sectors like farming. The Welsh government’s solution is the Sustainable Farming Scheme (SFS) — a program designed to help farmers adopt low-carbon activities like planting more trees. The thinking is that with the offer of cash, farmers will dedicate more of their land to mopping up planet-wrecking emissions, making the most of its natural potential to sequester carbon and store it deep in the soil. Wales should reap the benefits of these “natural carbon sinks,” says the U.K.’s independent climate advisers, the Climate Change Committee.  But ministers paused the SFS roll-out after initial plans, published in December 2023, provoked protests and a backlash over a draft 10 percent tree-planting target, which farmers said would cost thousands of agricultural jobs. The Welsh government says details will now be finalized this summer, with the scheme up and running in 2026. With 90 percent of its land used for farming, Wales is seeing instability over climate and agriculture policy. | Abby Wallace/POLITICO “I think we’ve come from such a bad place, it’s going to be quite hard to lift it back up,” said Abi Reader, a dairy farmer and deputy president of the National Farmers Union Cymru.  Behind Reader, on her farm in the Cardiff town of Wenvoe, a large shed groans as rows of cattle diligently shuffle into the parlour, waiting to be hooked up to clinking machines for milking. “It’s difficult to say whether we should be signing up to it [the SFS] or not, because we’ve got no details of any of the costings,” Reader said.  “We’re all business people at the end of the day and, you know, we’ve all already done our budgets for next year. And there’s nothing to go to a bank manager with and say: ‘I want to borrow this, or can you support me for that?’” ‘BANG, BANG, KICK A MAN’ The SFS has caused unrest on another politically sensitive topic: livestock. A Welsh government estimate suggested the scheme could reduce livestock numbers by as much as 120,000. If ministers in Cardiff follow separate CCC advice published in May — on how to hit climate goals by 2033 — cattle and sheep numbers in Wales need to fall by nearly a fifth. Some of this will come from wider trends toward lower meat and dairy consumption — but it will also be driven by policies like the SFS, which incentivize farmers to rely less on livestock. The Welsh government must “engage with farmers and their communities, and support them to diversify their incomes,” the CCC said. This advice has spooked farmers, who see a threat to years of family-owned businesses. “Would that mean I’d have to move away from here?” asked third-generation beef farmer Tom Rees in his kitchen in Cowbridge, gesturing to the fields beyond the window where his father and grandfather also farmed. His farm slopes downhill toward a patch of land that often floods when a neighboring river overflows. It’s sliced up into rectangular fields by colorful hedgerows that act as corridors for local wildlife and as shelter for his cows on sunny days — but planting hedges isn’t how Rees wants to earn a living. “I went to college to study agriculture, to come on the farm because I wanted to produce food,” he said. “I don’t want to plant a woodland.” Rees hopes to pass the farm on to his 15-month-old son Henry — but is worried about uncertainty over the SFS, as well as issues around bovine tuberculosis and inheritance tax changes. He said: “Dad’s left the farm in a better place than when he took it on. We want to take it on a bit further, so we could leave it for Henry. … [But] with the government in Westminster and the government in the Senedd — you just really feel, Why are we bothering? “It’s bang, bang, kick a man while you’re down. That’s what it feels like, and that’s what a lot of farmers feel like in Wales.” The Welsh government refused to comment on the SFS, confirming only that details will be published this month. A spokesperson said the government is “reviewing” the CCC’s advice, which will inform decisions on a new climate goal for Wales before the end of the year. “We’re trying to take forward a future for agriculture in Wales, which is to do with thriving, living businesses and communities within Wales,” Huw Irranca-Davies, Wales’ cabinet secretary for climate change and rural affairs, told POLITICO in an interview last year. ANNOYING VOTERS Labour’s support has traditionally been low in rural Wales, where votes flow instead to the Conservatives or Plaid Cymru. But the mess over agricultural policies is deepening Labour’s woes, argued Cardiff University’s Larner. “By annoying these people, you kind of block off the possibility that any of these people at all will vote Labour,” he said, “So it’s just a kind of narrowing of the vote pool in which you can fish for extra voters come other elections.” Meantime, Plaid Cymru and Reform are making their pitches to rural voters. “You have to take the farmers with you on this journey. And that’s one lesson, I think, that the Welsh government has learned the hard way,” said Llyr Gruffydd, Senedd member for North Wales and Plaid’s agriculture and rural affairs spokesperson. Plaid will “reassess” the SFS when more details are published, Gruffydd said. His party is not about to announce plans to “plow a different furrow,” he said, but he didn’t rule out ditching the unpopular scheme either. When Plaid sees the plans, Gruffydd argued, it can decide “whether this is something that we can pursue, whether we feel we need to amend it — or, God forbid, whether we have to say, let’s get back to the drawing board.” Nigel Farage’s Reform, riding high in the polls and fresh from smashing Labour in local elections in May, wants to scrap net-zero targets altogether. “Farmers want lower costs to stay afloat. Net stupid zero adds costs for no benefit,” said Deputy Leader Richard Tice. Reform is set to benefit, too, from anger over the fate of Welsh steelmaking. Thousands of job losses loom at the Port Talbot plant as it shifts to a lower-emitting electric arc furnace, a political gift to Farage when he argues that climate-friendly policies wreck traditional industries. “That’s the one big example we’ve seen of net-zero related policy, and is one of loss of jobs with not very much put in place to support workers to do anything different,” said Joe Rossiter, co-director at the Institute of Welsh Affairs. “When it all shakes out, I do think the fight will be Labour vs. Reform for the top spot,” said one Labour insider who was granted anonymity to speak candidly. The U.K. government “has been completely focused on making sure the transition to green steelmaking is as good as it can be.” Asked about the example of Port Talbot, Reader, the dairy farmer, was nervous about the precedent it set for other climate policies. “If they damage Welsh agriculture in the same way [as steel], I think that’s really letting down Wales,” she said.  ALL IN IT TOGETHER The Welsh government’s other big problem? It has cuddled up so tightly to Westminster that Labour’s performance in Cardiff will rebound in London and vice-versa. “There’s no ‘other’ for them to blame, because they’ve tied themselves very closely, rhetorically as well, to the U.K. government,” Larner said. Some Welsh Labour MPs defend the U.K. government’s record. “If you look at the amount of money that the Labour Party is investing in the agricultural sector, that shows a huge commitment to the industry,” said Henry Tufnell, Labour MP for Pembrokeshire. After months spent arguing the benefits of having Labour governments in both Cardiff and London, Senedd First Minister Eluned Morgan in May pivoted to emphasize the divide between them. Expect more attempts to put “clear red water” between the two camps, Larner said. Yet when Starmer addressed the Welsh Labour conference in north Wales last month, the old closeness was back. “Next year it’s a clear choice. Two Labour governments working together for the people of Wales … or risk rolling back all the progress we are making,” the prime minister said. As Starmer spoke, a clutch of farmers protested outside. ‘Starmer: farmer harmer,’ read one placard. Voters will say soon enough what they make of that bond between Labour in Wales and Westminster.

LONDON — Britain will formally sanction two far-right Israeli ministers for their comments over Gaza, the U.K. confirmed Tuesday. The assets of Israeli Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich will be frozen and the pair will also face travel bans, the Times first reported. No financial institutions will be allowed to deal with them. U.K. Foreign Secretary David Lammy said the ministers had “incited extremist violence and serious abuses of Palestinian human rights.” He added: “These actions are not acceptable. This is why we have taken action now — to hold those responsible to account.” In response, Israel said: “It is outrageous that elected representatives and members of the government are subjected to these kind of measures.” Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar said the Cabinet would meet next week to respond to what he called the “unacceptable decision.” While the U.S. has continued to stand resolutely behind Israel as it wages war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip, other longtime allies — including the EU, Britain and Canada — have grown increasingly critical of Israel and its military tactics. Israel launched its military assault on Gaza in response for the Hamas militant group’s violent attack on Oct. 7, 2023, which killed more than 1,000 Israelis. The death toll in Gaza has now surpassed 50,000 people, according to Gazan health officials, as Israel’s offensive continues. Ben-Gvir and Smotrich have consistently been the most hard-line ministers in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government and are crucial allies keeping him in power. Ben-Gvir briefly resigned from Netanyahu’s Cabinet in January during the short ceasefire, before rejoining in March when fighting resumed. He said the resumption of aid deliveries into Gaza was a “serious and grave mistake.” Smotrich has approved the expansion of West Bank settlements and said that “not even a grain of wheat” should be allowed into Gaza. He also said Palestinians would be relocated to third countries after the war. The U.K. has been working on the new sanctions for weeks, as France’s push for recognition of Palestinian statehood hit a wall. Several Arab nations have been pushing for Western countries to focus their efforts on economic measures. British lawmakers who have been calling on the government to recognize Palestinian statehood were told that sanctions would take priority, two Labour MPs granted anonymity to speak candidly told POLITICO. Keir Starmer told MPs last week the U.K. was “looking at further action, along with our allies, including sanctions” while French President Emmanuel Macron gave similar indications. Last month, Starmer, Macron and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney issued a joint statement decrying the “intolerable” humanitarian situation in the besieged coastal enclave. “We will not stand by while the Netanyahu government pursues these egregious actions. If Israel does not cease the renewed military offensive and lift its restrictions on humanitarian aid, we will take further concrete actions in response,” they added. Lammy earlier told the Commons the comments of ministers were “monstrous” for calling for the relocation of Gazans. He added: “We must call this what it is. It is extremism. It is dangerous. It is repellent. It is monstrous and I condemn it in the strongest possible terms.”

Bug food for pets was never Plan A — it’s the last resort for insect producers to stay afloat. They blame EU bureaucracy. “I wake up every morning for the fish, not to feed the pets,” said Sébastien Crépieux, CEO of Invers, a French insect producer based in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes that grows mealworms in cooperation with local farmers. He explains that most insect producers started with the idea of replacing protein in fishmeal used to feed farmed fish with a more sustainable source — such as insects. Fishmeal is usually made from fish processing waste and forage fish like anchovies or sardines, and contributes to overfishing and biodiversity loss. In 2017, the European Commission approved the use of insect protein in aquaculture feed to address that issue. In 2022, it also allowed insects to be used in feed for pigs and poultry. For many in the field, that was a big step forward. “We all developed based on this concept,” said Crépieux. “But unfortunately, the Commission never banned fishmeal, so we’re still competing with a resource taken freely from the ocean at a very low price. Fishmeal imports into Europe must be controlled — we’re really killing the ocean,” he added. According to the 2024 United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization report, 10 percent of fish populations were fished at unsustainable levels in the mid-1970s. The number has almost quadrupled in 2021 to 37.7 percent of stocks. The ambitious EU monitoring rules on fisheries, which came into force last January, introduced electronic tracking systems for vessels and minimum sanctions for violations of the common fisheries policy — but failed to include limits on how much forage fish can be diverted to fishmeal. That’s where insect-based pet food comes in. “If we had to compete by selling our production as fish feed, we would already be dead,” said Crépieux. That is why he, like some other producers, shifted his focus to pet food. FEEDING PETS WITH BUGS Insect-based pet food — marketed as hypoallergenic and more sustainable — remains a niche product embraced mostly by true enthusiasts. Traditional pet food, made from meat or vegetable byproducts or grains, still dominates more than 99.5 percent of the market. According to Crépieux, it’s unlikely this type of pet food will ever become mainstream unless major brands like Purina or Acana adopt it. Insect-based pet food is marketed as hypoallergenic and more sustainable. | Sam Yeh/AFP via Getty Images Still, his company has managed to attract customers who care about the environment and good nutrition for their pets, he claimed. “The palatability is high. I think animals, unlike us, know what’s good for their health — they really eat it,” he said, adding that his cats are happy with this alternative protein. However, green NGOs like Eurogroup for Animals and Compassion in World Farming have questioned its true environmental benefits. “Farming insects has a higher sustainability impact than most traditional pet food ingredients … most insects are not sourced from Europe,” said Francis Maugère of Eurogroup for Animals. “If you want to rear them here, you can — but you must keep them at high temperature and humidity, which comes with financial and energy costs,” he added. The group also argues that there’s insufficient scientific evidence to support the hypoallergenic claims. “The sustainability of insect-based pet food is highly questionable — from insect welfare standards, to the need for diets based solely on byproducts rather than cereals and soy, to its high carbon footprint due to heating requirements,” said Phil Brooke, research and education manager at Compassion in World Farming. FEDIAF, which represents the European pet food industry, called insect-based pet food “one of several promising innovations” in the drive to diversify sustainable protein sources. Cecilia Lalander, a professor at the Swedish University of Uppsala specializing in insect use in waste management, believes using insects for pet food is “not the best use of resources.” “If we’re replacing pet food made from animal byproducts — like slaughter waste, which is already a good use of waste — then it’s really not sustainable,” she said. THE UNSUSTAINABLE LOOP Lack of fishmeal regulation isn’t the only source of frustration for insect producers. The EU classifies insects as farmed animals and prohibits using kitchen waste to feed them. As a result, insects are often raised on the same food processing byproducts — like wheat bran or brewery grains — that are already suitable for feeding pigs and cattle, making insects an unnecessary extra step in the food chain. Lalander argues this is inefficient and unsustainable. “The reason the insect industry can’t be as sustainable as it could be is entirely due to regulations,” she said. Following the mad cow disease (BSE) outbreak in the 1990s, the EU implemented strict rules to prevent a recurrence. It banned the use of processed meat in livestock feed, and ruled that farmed animals — including insects — may not be fed catering waste, as it could contain traces of meat. However, Lalander points out that insects cannot develop or transmit prions, the infectious proteins responsible for BSE, and that health risks are minimal. “The system the EU opposed was the most closed loop imaginable — giving feed originating from the same species, even if they were dead or sick,” she said. “What we propose is using post-consumer food waste to feed insects, which are then used to feed animals.” The European Commission, for its part, disagrees with the view that feeding insects with catering waste is risk-free. “The risks are not limited to BSE and prions only … but related to several transmissible animal diseases,” a Commission official said in response to a POLITICO inquiry. Catering waste may transmit several animal diseases such as African or classical swine fever, foot and mouth disease or avian influenza, the official said, while catering waste has been identified as a possible or likely source of infection in several outbreaks of these diseases in the EU. “Due to the nature of the insects which are living in their feed and are contaminated with their feeding substrate, only feeding substrate already declared safe for farmed animals has been authorized,” added the Commission official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Several scientific studies have found, however, that these risks can be avoided if food waste is treated properly before feeding it to insects. Such treatment can include fermentation, heat treatment, or drying to remove harmful pathogens that can be found in unprocessed food waste. Lalander argues that regulatory barriers aren’t the only challenge circular business models like the insect one are facing. Long-standing market expectations, shaped by cheap, linear production systems that overlook environmental costs, also pose a significant obstacle. “In a circular business model you pay for every step of the production. But if you look at the world market predominantly it’s a linear economy which means you take product and then you have a waste and that’s it,” Lalander said. She points out that expecting insect feed to be as cheap as fishmeal and soy is unrealistic, noting that “the cost for using soy and fish meal comes in the environmental impact.” Crépieux ended his conversation with POLITICO on a grim note. “Everything sustainable always loses. It’s always easier to take from nature, which is free,” Crépieux said.

The EU’s response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to impose so-called reciprocal tariffs on all of America’s trading partners may be less aggressive than expected, but it does show some creativity in its bid to hit the U.S. where it will hurt the most. According to an internal document seen by POLITICO, the Commission is considering slapping tariffs of up to 25 percent on a broad range of exports from the U.S. worth around €22.1 billion based on the EU’s 2024 imports. The list features run-of-the-mill agricultural and industrial commodities such as soybeans, meat, tobacco, iron, steel and aluminum — to hit the American sectors that rely most on transatlantic exports. Dig deeper, and it turns out the EU’s trade nerds have stirred some unaccustomed creativity into their expert knowledge of obscure customs codes, while channeling a helping of passive aggression to inflict pain on Trump’s base. EU countries are set to vote on the new duties on Wednesday, with no major opposition expected. Once they’ve approved the list (which is technically made up of multiple lists), the first set of tariffs on goods such as cranberries or orange juice, which the EU initially imposed in 2018 during the first Trump presidency but suspended in 2021, will take effect on April 15.  A 25 percent duty will then kick in from May 16 on a second batch of imported items such as steel, meat, white chocolate and polyethylene. Finally, a 25 percent duty on almonds and soybeans will take effect Dec. 1. (Leave it to the Commission to build some suspense.) Overall, EU duties are set to hit up to $13.5 billion worth of exports from red states, according to POLITICO’s analysis of 2024 trade data. Let’s start with the EU’s No. 1 target — soybeans, the most valuable item on the bloc’s hit list, a product whose economic and symbolic significance for the Republican Party’s heartlands cannot be overstated. The U.S. is the world’s second-largest soybean producer and exporter, and the EU tariffs would hit a sector already battered by China’s retaliatory measures, rising global competition and falling prices. That’s not all: 82.5 percent of American soybean exports to the EU come from Louisiana, the home state of House Speaker Mike Johnson. Unsurprisingly, U.S. soybean producers slammed Trump’s commercial belligerence last month, arguing that “tariffs are not something to be taken lightly” and urging the administration to “reconsider tariffs [against Canada, Mexico and China] and potential upcoming tariffs.” So far, however, the U.S. president has signaled that he was “not looking at” pausing the new tariffs. The EU is also targeting beef from Kansas and Nebraska, poultry from Louisiana, car parts from Michigan, cigarettes from Florida, and wood products from North Carolina, Georgia and Alabama. While the Commission ended up dropping whiskey from the final draft after successful lobbying from France, Italy and Ireland, it did include other more niche items designed to cause the greatest pain to exporters in Republican states. These include (but are not limited to) ice cream from Arizona, handkerchiefs from South Carolina, electric blankets from Alabama, ties and bow ties from Florida (unless they’re made of silk, which Democratic California will be more than happy to provide), and washing machines from Wisconsin. Pasta from Florida and South Carolina will also face some tariff heat, though Italy will likely be delighted to fill the market gap. Finally, women’s negligées from Ohio and Kentucky, a fan favorite from the Commission’s first proposal, made the final cut; so did men’s undergarments, although they are mostly found in blue states. ZOOMING BACK The trade war unleashed by Trump comes with a hefty price for Washington, as Canada and China have responded to the U.S. president’s deluge of duties with their own counter tariffs. Overall, retaliatory measures imposed by China, Canada and the EU will hit nearly $90 billion of American exports. Beijing has mainly targeted U.S. produce, slapping a 15 percent duty on commodities like chicken, wheat and corn along with 10 percent on soybeans, meat, fruit and other farm exports. Canada, meanwhile, has imposed two sets of tariffs — 25 percent on a range of agrifood products, and another 25 percent on steel and aluminum products. For its part, Brussels has experimented with a carrot-and-stick approach to signal it won’t bow to Trump’s demands while leaving the door open to negotiations. On Monday the bloc offered a “zero-for-zero” tariff scheme on industrial goods covering cars, drugs, chemicals, plastics and machinery among other things.  Trump, however, said the offer fell short and urged EU countries to buy $350 billion worth of American energy products to make the trade deficit “disappear … in one week.” As a last resort, the bloc could wield its “trade bazooka” to hit U.S. services, which would take the trade war to a whole new level — something not all EU countries are ready to do just yet.

BRUSSELS — Donald Trump is an equal-opportunity mercantilist. When it comes to the European Union’s €198 billion trade surplus with the United States, he’ll claw at any sector he can. Brandishing 25 percent tariffs on EU steel and aluminum, the U.S. president has demanded that the bloc buy more American cars, fossil fuels, weapons, pharmaceuticals — and food. “They don’t take our farm products, they take almost nothing and we take everything from them … tremendous amounts of food and farm products,” Trump complained to journalists in Florida earlier this month, decrying his country’s €18 billion deficit in agri-food trade with Europe. Taking more of the first four is feasible. The Commission can lower its 10 percent duty on imported automobiles, while EU countries can purchase less oil from Kazakhstan, fewer missiles from South Korea, and smaller drug batches from Switzerland. These demands would hurt local industry, but they are doable if Brussels wants to appease the irascible ultranationalist. The fifth is not. A range of culinary, phytosanitary and political obstacles bar the way to Europe’s importing most American staples — from Texan beef and Kentucky chicken to Wisconsin milk and Kansas wheat. Then there’s the fact the new EU commissioners for agriculture and animal welfare, Christophe Hansen and Olivér Várhelyi, want to tightly regulate agri-food imports. It may be a bitter pill for the president to swallow. But not even his “Art of the Deal” can vanquish Europe’s Art of the Meal. THE INVISIBLE HAND PICKS EUROPEAN FOOD  Contrary to what Trump says, the imbalance in agri-food trade isn’t due to unfair customs duties. U.S. and EU rates are similarly low for most products: zero for hard liquor, a few percent for wine and cereals, and 5 percent to 10 percent for fruits, vegetables, cured meats, confectionery, canned food and processed goods. The exceptions are EU dairy and pork (often upward of 20 percent), yet these aren’t areas where American rivals have much of a chance anyway, given that the EU runs a massive surplus in both categories (Germany and Spain are top exporters). Moreover, the U.S. is protective too — for example, on beef — and accepted higher EU dairy duties in the 1988 Uruguay round of GATT negotiations. Why? Because it extracted a promise that the EU wouldn’t subsidize oilseed production. Why would that matter to the Americans? Because that’s what they’re best at cultivating. Farms in the U.S. are on average 10 times bigger than in the EU and are able to churn out raw materials: hunks of meat, blocks of cheese and silos full of cereals. However, apart from the odd Californian wine, the U.S. doesn’t have many specialty products to vaunt. Europe is the opposite: A mosaic of small, regionally diverse farms, its producers are uncompetitive in most commodities, but possess an advantage in traditional foods. For example, the continent has five times more “geographical indication” trademarks than the U.S., allowing its farmers to transform simple crops into premium goods.  It’s bad agribusiness but great gastronomy, which is the second reason Americans spend more on EU farm goods than vice versa. While Americans happily gobble and slurp European GIs, Europeans typically find U.S. foods too fatty, salty, sugary or alcoholic for their palates. “If you look at the product composition, it’s very different,” said John Clarke, until recently the EU’s top agricultural trade negotiator. “The EU exports mostly high-value products: wine, spirits, charcuterie, olive oil, cheese. The U.S. exports low-value commodities: soya, maize, almonds … the fact [these have] a lower unit value is a fact of life.” During Trump’s first term, a bad harvest in Brazil and Argentina at least gave Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker an opportunity to offer Washington an apparent concession: The EU would buy more American soybeans. Trump gleefully celebrated what was in fact a financial necessity for European farmers, who need soy for animal feed. This time that won’t work, though. Brazilian grain harvests are near record levels, while Ukraine is investing heavily in oilseeds. The Commission is rolling out a protein strategy that  encourages supply diversification and more domestic production. And Europeans are eating less red meat, dragging soybean demand down. PHYTOSANITARY PARANOIA If Trump wants Europeans to eat more American food, he’ll have to convince them to swallow something even tougher: U.S. food safety standards. Europeans might buy American software, movies and weapons, but they aren’t keen on U.S. beef pumped with hormones, chlorine-washed chicken or genetically modified corn. The main reason? Brussels’ precautionary principle — a regulatory approach that requires proof a product is safe before it can be sold. The U.S., by contrast, operates on a risk-based system, where anything not proven harmful is fair game. That divergence has created a trade minefield. American beef exports are capped at 35,000 metric tons annually under a special quota, thanks to an EU-wide ban on hormone-treated meat. U.S. poultry is largely locked out because of pathogen reduction treatments — a fancy way of saying Americans rinse their chicken in antimicrobial washes the EU deems unacceptable. Genetically modified crops, a staple of U.S. agribusiness, also face strict EU restrictions, requiring lengthy approvals and labeling rules that spook European consumers. Pesticides are another flash point. Today, over 70 different pesticides banned in the EU as toxic to human health and the environment remain widespread in U.S. grain and fruit farming. That includes chlorpyrifos, an insecticide linked to brain damage in children, and paraquat, a weedkiller associated with a higher long-term risk of Parkinson’s disease. As a result, Brussels imposes residue limits that frequently force U.S. growers to create separate, EU-compliant supply chains. While Trump may rage about tariffs and trade imbalances, it’s Brussels’ food safety regulations — not import duties — that are keeping much American food off European plates. And with the EU mulling even stricter crackdowns on imports that don’t conform to its standards, expect the transatlantic trade menu to get even leaner. DON’T ANGER THE FARMERS Trump may not be aware, but European capitals also witnessed furious farmer protests last year. Fear of foreign competition was one of the main triggers, with unions bitterly criticizing imports from Ukraine and South America’s Mercosur bloc for their looser production standards, laxer agrochemical use and cheaper agricultural land. Poland, Hungary and Slovakia have still not lifted their illegal blockades on Ukrainian grain, and the Commission is in no position to force them to do so. In fact, Brussels has responded by making fair pricing for farmers the lodestar of its upcoming agri-food policy. The EU even wants to apply “mirror clauses” to imports to align rules on animal welfare and pesticides, according to a leaked draft of a long-term policy vision due out this week. A surge in U.S. imports would likely prompt the same attacks. These could be politically decisive ahead of stormy presidential races this year in Poland and Romania, two European breadbaskets, as well as major elections in France, Italy and Spain in the next two years.  So is there no solution to Trump’s hunger for agri-trade parity? It seems not, unless the president decides to massively expand the U.S. military’s presence in the EU, bringing tens of thousands more peanut butter-loving troops to defend the continent’s security. It’s a crazy idea of course. Then again … Giovanna Coi contributed reporting.

The U.S. has increased its intelligence-gathering in the Gaza Strip since it was caught off guard by the Oct. 7 attack on Israel. But gaps remain on the very type of intelligence that could be essential to finding a path to ending the conflict. One year after the attack, U.S. intelligence agencies are still struggling to understand the inner political dynamics of the Hamas militant group, whether it’s ready for a cease-fire agreement and its longer-term aspirations for Gaza — all questions that policymakers need to answer as they scramble to avoid a full-scale regional war. For decades, U.S. administrations chose not to prioritize intelligence collection and analysis on Gaza and Hamas. Despite the improvements, one year isn’t enough time to make up for that, according to current and former intelligence officials. And since the Oct. 7 attack, the Biden administration has continued to prioritize intelligence gathering on other foreign crises, including the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, the war in Ukraine and threats from China, officials and lawmakers briefed on the subject said. “The intelligence community is vast, but so are the number of priorities assigned to its staff,” said Norman Roule, former national intelligence manager for Iran and senior adviser to the Counter Extremism Project. “Absent steady policymaker demand, the system moves resources — and demands on our partners — to targets that are perceived to have greater policymaker interest.” POLITICO spoke to four current and former senior U.S. officials and three lawmakers and congressional staffers for this story. Most were granted anonymity to speak freely about sensitive intelligence matters. The large U.S. blind spot in Gaza drew immediate scrutiny in the days following Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel. In briefings on Capitol Hill, intelligence officials told lawmakers they were stunned by what Hamas was able to pull off. The assault had taken months if not years to plan, they said. And it killed 30 Americans — the deadliest terrorist attack on U.S. citizens since 9/11. Senior members of Congress pressed for answers: Was the U.S. warned? How could Israel have missed it? Intelligence officials didn’t have comforting answers for lawmakers: The U.S. had largely relied on Israel for inside information on Gaza — and the Israelis had failed to take seriously some of their own internal warnings. The attack exposed a significant gap in Washington’s intelligence on Gaza and its broader understanding of Hamas, sparking a push to ramp up collection and analysis in the enclave. Over the last year, American intelligence agencies have done so, deploying drones, satellites and other surveillance tools — such as certain radar devices — to better understand Hamas’ military tactics. All of this has helped Israel locate Hamas’ locations in Gaza. But those efforts only partly fill the void of information in the region. And officials and lawmakers say policymakers in Washington, including those in the National Security Council, deemed other conflicts as higher priority in the months following the attack. The fighting between Israel and Hezbollah has been treated as particularly urgent because it could set off a regional war that would pull in U.S. forces. The administration has also been focused on doing everything it can to help Ukraine advance in its fight against Russia, including by sending it sophisticated weapons to fend off cross-border attacks. And the White House sees China as an existential threat that can’t be sidelined, even by a war that has killed tens of thousands of people. But the gaps in intelligence in Gaza could make it harder for the White House to find the right formula for a cease-fire deal. It’s unclear exactly where the U.S. blind spots lie, but public back-and-forth over a U.S.-proposed hostage-release and cease-fire deal have exposed a lack of clarity. Multiple times, the Biden administration has claimed Hamas has accepted a proposal, only to have the group come out and reject it outright (The same has happened with Israel). “When it comes to Hamas — if we miscalculate how they negotiate (and we do), then we end up with mismatched formulas,” said Mickey Bergman, an expert in international hostage negotiations and CEO of Global Reach, a nonprofit that works for the release of Americans detained abroad. And if a cease-fire deal isn’t reached anytime soon, intelligence into the inner workings of the group would also be essential to figuring out when Hamas is weakened enough that the U.S. — and therefore hopefully Israel — can declare the war won. The burgeoning conflict between Israel and Hezbollah — the Lebanon-based militant group that is also backed by Iran — is only complicating those machinations. Hezbollah has long said it would pause its battle against Israel only if a cease-fire agreement in Gaza was reached. It’s unclear whether the group’s thinking has changed following Israel’s recent campaign against its positions in Lebanon. The NSC declined to comment. The CIA and the Office of the Director for National Intelligence also declined to comment. Former senior American intelligence officials and officers said the U.S. began relying heavily on the Israelis for intelligence on Gaza and Hamas in the late 1990s when Washington began engaging with the Palestinians more directly on the political front. Since then, the U.S. has tasked certain units to track Hamas, the West Bank and Gaza, but those units are often small in comparison to those that cover other countries and issues in the region, the officials said. The U.S. has long helped fill the gaps with intelligence shared by the Israelis. But the shortcomings of that became obvious on Oct. 7, 2023. “We called this only an Israeli intelligence failure. We should be clear. This was also an American intelligence failure,” Roule said. American intelligence agencies have long faced multiple roadblocks when it comes to collecting and analyzing information about Gaza. The biggest issue: Gaza is largely closed off from the rest of the world and obtaining credible intelligence from human sources inside is extremely difficult. “Since ceasing official travel into Gaza in 2003, it was inevitable that US cognizance of Gaza would fade. There is no substitute for boots on the ground in terms of intelligence collection,” said Ted Singer, a former senior intelligence officer at the CIA. “And recruiting and handling sources in a denied area is dangerous, both physically and from a counterintelligence perspective, both to the case officer and the agent.” That’s become even more difficult since the Oct. 7 attacks. The enclave is completely closed off now — even aid groups and journalists are finding it difficult to get in, making it harder to recruit human assets. American officials, diplomats and agents have faced problems getting into Gaza. And Palestinians often face problems obtaining permits that would allow them to leave the enclave. Without exhaustive information from human sources — including in Gaza and in other Middle East capitals in the region — intelligence officials have had to turn elsewhere to try to understand the inner workings of Hamas. Details on how the U.S. is currently collecting data on Hamas are murky. But current U.S. officials and lawmakers, who couldn’t give specifics on collection because the information is classified, broadly outlined how Washington is working to gather more information inside Gaza. While Israel has its own satellite program, American satellites are far more sophisticated. The U.S. has helped Israel by sharing images from its satellites to help the country’s military forces detect tunnels and other Hamas command centers. Satellite imagery has also guided U.S. policy around humanitarian assistance and access issues inside Gaza. The U.S. is also using its drones for similar intelligence collection. It’s unclear the extent to which the U.S. has relied on its digital spying authority — Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act — to collect information on Gaza. That statute allows intelligence agencies to read emails and other electronic communications of foreigners abroad. It’s likely the U.S. is using the authority in some capacity, former officials said, but in recent years, leaders of the Iranian proxy groups, including Hamas, have largely stayed away from cellphones. They’ve instead used pagers and other forms of communications, such as walkie-talkies in an effort to better avoid U.S. monitoring. Current and former officials said the U.S. is also using publicly available material for its intelligence analysis, including reports from human rights and aid organizations as well as local journalists. While some in the intelligence community view such information as less reliable, others argue it is crucial to understanding the situation on the ground in Gaza today. The war in Gaza has killed tens of thousands of people and the humanitarian crisis in the enclave continues to deteriorate, aid groups say. In the days after Oct. 7, lawmakers on Capitol Hill pushed the administration to stop outsourcing intelligence collection to the Israelis. There was a deep sense inside the halls of Congress, especially on the intelligence committees, that more needed to be done to rectify Washington’s understanding of the situation on the ground. And to some lawmakers, the Israelis couldn’t be trusted — at least on the issue of Hamas. Those same lawmakers have pressed the intelligence community for continual briefings on the conflict, pressing intelligence officials for information on what exactly the U.S. is collecting and how it is being used by policymakers. Details of those conversations are sparse, but it appears the intelligence agencies, though they’ve increased their collection in the enclave, have further expanded their intelligence sharing relationship with Israel.