The EU is a colossus. So why is it cowering before Trump like a mouse?

The Guardian

2 days ago

Who remembers the spate of 'introduction videos' that emerged during the first Trump administration – a series of tongue-in-cheek clips about European countries to introduce them to Donald Trump? The viral video trend was sparked by the Dutch comedian Arjen Lubach, who ended his segment on the Netherlands with: 'We totally understand it's going to be America first, but can we just say the Netherlands second?' It seems that Europe's leaders remember the videos all too well; that they internalised the caustic message a little bit too much.
Afraid of rocking the boat during its trade negotiations with Trump, the EU decided to pre-emptively sink itself. Instead of strategic autonomy, it will spend hundreds of billions of dollars on American weapons; in place of future climate goals, it will pour hundreds of billions into US natural gas; instead of a mutual tariff reduction, it will take a huge unilateral hit to EU exporters; instead of self-respect, humiliating prostration.
The new trade 'deal' announced by Trump and Ursula von der Leyen last month left a five-year-old's worth of whys to ponder. Why does the EU, a colossus, think it is a mouse? Why is it content to merely nibble at the edges of power? Will it ever respect itself as much as China, which met Trump tariff for tariff until he backed off? Why don't its politicians understand that voters want leaders who will defend them, and that, as for Canada's Mark Carney and Brazil's Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, there are actually electoral rewards to be reaped by doing so without reserve? Why, even after Brexit, do they ignore the lesson that these same voters prioritise identity and emotion over cold economic rationality?
The EU could have called Trump's bluff; the problem is that, as Emmanuel Macron remarked, the EU isn't 'feared enough'. And yet, it has far more leverage than China does against the US economy. If deployed, the EU's anti-coercion instrument would enable it to flatly end the future manufacturing of the most advanced semiconductors in the US by shutting off exports, turning Trump's $500bn Stargate AI project into an intergalactic bridge to nowhere. It could obliterate long-term US tech dominance by taxing the Silicon Valley behemoths, blocking their market access and removing their intellectual property protections. It could severely disrupt Americans' supply of Ozempic and Wegovy for good measure.
Would this spiral? Undoubtedly – but as the weaker tech player, the EU arguably has less to lose and ultimately more to gain. Plus, Europeans hate Trump and would probably unify in the face of a full-blown trade war, whereas Americans – half of whom also hate Trump – would not.
We tend to take the EU for granted, but there is anger brewing amid latent pride. The first European politician to tell Trump where to shove it – in a crude, unapologetic and very public way – is going to surf a wave of never-before-seen emotion and support.
Is this far-fetched and unrealistic? Probably. But everything about Trump is far-fetched and unrealistic. Why are we willing to accept – expect, even – boundary-pushing, shocking behaviour from the US, but not from ourselves? Surrendering to Trump's demands is the act of an entity that still believes the US is a wayward friend to appease, cajole and fear, all while the US under Trump sees and treats Europe as a weak, naive thing to manipulate and exploit. Well, congratulations, Europe proved it right – and all but ensured that Trump and his ilk will come back for a second round of ransom demands and threats. In fact, they already are, with the US commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, going after EU tech regulations following the deal.
Europe might not like it, but the world has changed. In this new era, Russia, China and the US all want a return to spheres of influence and the rule of power in place of the rule of law, just with varying appetites for chaos (Russia) versus stability (China). Within this fuzzy picture, Trump is a genius at twisting emotion to his purposes, but he is also deeply ignorant, intellectually incoherent and follows mafioso-style instincts about how to wield the power he has, with the end result of undermining it more quickly.
The EU is the only significant force left with a deep desire for a world that abides by the rule of law. That doesn't mean it's the only actor that wants this – it's joined by the UK, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Japan and, especially when it comes to climate, a host of other nations potentially led by Brazil.
For decades, though, Europe has been enthralled with the story the US spins. As a result, it's now in thrall to an America spinning a dark story. That's a bad place for Europe to be. Not just economically, but geopolitically, because its dependence on the US (and fear that Trump will drop Ukraine into the deep end) leaves it in a place of hypocrisy in relation to would-be global partners: unwilling to uphold international law against Benjamin Netanyahu's genocide in Gaza all while rightly exhorting it in response to Vladimir Putin's relentless bombing of civilians in Ukraine.
There is an inflection point looming – or perhaps it has just arrived – where Europeans will have to ask themselves, what is the purpose of an EU for ever consigned to can-kicking half measures, choosing the lowest common denominator among its internal divisions, and repeated capitulation? The far-right nationalists have an answer: no real union at all, and a future of vassalage and endless bickering for the scraps of global irrelevance.
What is the federalist answer? This is not just a nice intellectual exercise. I don't want to live in a world where aggressors grab land when they want, where genocides go unchecked, where the climate crisis spins out of control and where far-right autocracy takes root.
The answer has to be that the EU starts to actually believe in itself, rather than the narrative the US so deftly spins. That means an end to being enthralled by GDP per capita as a measure of prosperity. It means including the climate crisis as context in every economic discussion, for the same reason that a nutrition label that made no mention of sugar content would make no sense. Europe-based economic activity is among the least carbon-intensive in the world; the World Trade Organization is broken, so why not reorganise global trade – among the willing, and excluding the unwilling – around a price on carbon, using the EU's existing emissions trading system as a starting point?
It means removing the far-right's complaint that countries 'send' money to the EU by replacing national contributions with a common corporate tax rate for its members, along with wealth taxes and taxes on big tech. It means getting over the internal allergy to spending internationally insignificant sums of money, because almost every sphere in which the EU feels inferior to the US boils down to a willingness to spend – or not. The EU is jealous of the US's big tech firms, but there is no secret sauce here beyond investment. Take space for example, where, again, the US is dominant. How could it be anything other when Nasa's 2023 budget was $25bn and the European Space Agency's was €7bn? Time instead to roll out a budget worthy of a true geopolitical power, and invest in long-term economic, environmental and political success.
And finally, it means copying one thing from the Trump playbook: DGAF. Or, for the polite pages of the Guardian, 'caring less'. As in, if a von der Leyen spokesperson is reading this, the next time you hold a press conference, you might shoot back at all the public criticism: 'The European Commission president might not be a great negotiator, but at least she's not a sexual predator or a convicted felon.'
Alexander Hurst is a Guardian Europe columnist