For a brief moment on Thursday, it looked like the European Union and countries around the globe would get a surprise reprieve from the widest-sweeping tariffs imposed by US President Donald Trump.

The little-known US Court of International Trade in New York struck down the blanket baseline 10% tariffs on virtually all goods imported into the US, announced two months ago on what Trump dubbed "Liberation Day," along with even higher country-specific rates.

The US federal court argued that Trump had overstepped his presidential powers with the radical and sprawling penalties, a central pillar of his isolationist "America First” economic policy, and ordered a halt to the tariffs.

But within hours, there was a fresh plot twist: an appeals court suspended that order too, essentially reinstating the tariffs for the time being.

How exactly the battle — which is essentially about how much power over trade policy resides with the president and how much with Congress — plays out within the US judicial system remains to be seen.

For the EU, along with other global trading partners, Thursday's news boiled down to a welcome glimmer of hope that was quickly extinguished, at least for now.

In Brussels on Friday, the focus instead was on ongoing negotiations with the US. "Both sides are now working to an accelerated pace with a view to sealing agreements," European Commission spokesperson Olof Gill told DW.

The EU executive........

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