Subject: More EU views on the trade deal
TL;DR: It points to European structural problems.


https://brusselssignal.eu/2025...

The trade deal on July 27 between America and the European Union was disastrous for Europe. The Financial Times described it as “the EU [succumbing] to Trump’s steamroller.” The deal sees the EU agree to a broad-based 15 per cent tariff on all goods exported to the US, except for steel and aluminium, which will see higher tariffs. The EU will also spend $250 billion (€214 billion) on American energy per year for the next three years. Europe also is dropping their own tariffs.

The deal is shockingly one-sided; the only thing the EU “got” was President Donald Trump not engaging in a trade war.

But while Commission President Ursula von der Leyen negotiated the deal, this truly is not her fault. The European Union is stuck in this situation – where they have to see NATO’s General Secretary (and former long-term Dutch prime minister) call Trump “Daddy” and then, weeks later, engage in a humiliating trade deal – because the EU is fundamentally not built for a multipolar world. Instead, it’s been stuck in what could be called its “Articles of Confederation” stage.

The "Articles of Confederation" is a clever nod to US history. And no, not the Confederacy.

It is long past time for Europe to realise what America’s leaders realised in the 1780s: multipolarity and Articles of Confederation-style governance don’t mix. They could seek to truly federalise the Union, but that would meet stern opposition from the variety of nationalistic countries who do not want their fates to be determined by Brussels.

Instead, they should consider the opposite: Devolution of powers back to the states. Let the “Union” exist as a project for travel and trade, but end attempts to shape social policies – such as, in the midst of geopolitical uncertainty, taking the time to hector Budapest on Pride Month. End the attempts to form illogical pan-continental defence agreements, too. Allow blocs to form, for example, an eastern European bloc of Poland and the Baltics, armed to the teeth, one which can determine its own policies without being tied down to what Spain wants.

The EU, as currently constituted, cannot and will not be able to act as an independent power, much less as a pole, in multipolarity. It must change.