Game Over for the West: The EU bows to the US on tariffs, Europe submits to Trump

Surrender, capitulation, bowing: these are just some of the words being used in recent hours. Even the ever-prudent French Prime Minister, François Bayrou, explicitly spoke of submission. This occurred in the far from evocative setting of the Turnberry Golf Club resort in Scotland, where Trump decided to finally putt the ball into the hole in a trade war unilaterally declared against half the world, and especially against his natural ally, Europe. Europe, once again, appears to be compliant, despite increasingly timid declarations on the eve of international summits in which it asserts a strategic autonomy it appears unable to exercise. And it does so even by visiting a US President's property abroad, thus debasing protocols that are, after all, politics and therefore law.

It seems that Ursula von der Leyen's only success was sitting directly next to the American tycoon, establishing herself as the sole interlocutor after months of struggling to secure an appointment in Washington and envisioning a fragmented negotiations, with each nation speaking face-to-face with the US , waiting for imperial grace to offer some ad hoc discount. This was an approach initially championed by Meloni, who had ill-advisedly put herself forward as a bridgehead with Trump : less European than the Europeans, more pro-Atlantic than the pro-Atlanticists, no longer the underdog but the White House's little dog. All the paperwork needed to save herself from the avalanche, but it didn't quite work out that way. The end result was a single negotiation, but the outcome was disastrous. This included a posthumous justification for the tariffs by an increasingly deferential European Commission President: " We have a trade surplus, the United States has a deficit, and we need to rebalance." Which immediately sends her into “Rutte mode,” the new NATO Secretary General, who now speaks more or less like a Trump employee without even bothering to appear one.

The 15 percent tariff was considered a red line by Economy Minister Giorgetti, even though the 10 percent had already raised great alarm among the unions and Confindustria, which predicted 118,000 job losses . Today we're at 15 percent, with the pharmaceutical industry still to negotiate, and fashion and agri-food significantly affected. And then there's the metalworking sector, where the FIOM (Italian Federation of Metalworking Manufacturers) is now reporting approximately €30 billion in exports at risk. We'll be buying Trump's weapons and gas, for a total value of over €600 billion for the former and €750 billion for the latter: something that looks more like extortion than business. The US goal is to rebalance the trade balance and reindustrialize America, partly with the money of Europeans who will invest and relocate their businesses to their soil. There's no doubt that Trump will walk away from this Scottish weekend with a success at least comparable to the 5 percent increase he secured in military spending at NATO. This shows that using the stick against his European allies is working for the moment. And it doesn't matter that they are easily irritated by his verbal excesses; this is just "fuina" for domestic purposes: what matters is the result, and when you win the trade war without even playing it, it means you're the one sitting at the head of the table.

It's not far-fetched to think that this game will paradoxically end up strengthening those who, more than anyone, believed that the negotiations shouldn't take place at all, that the decline in trade would help strengthen nations, and that Trump's shockwave should be embraced because it would accelerate the crisis of European institutions until they were demolished. Namely, the sovereignist right, which is bidding to solve the problems it itself created and fueled. Always on the side of the solution, after having generated chaos. Who first disarmed the European negotiations? Trump's friends. When Meloni goes to the White House and, in her introduction, removes the taxation of big tech from the menu, she is effectively saying that she has decided to negotiate with her hands tied. She is taking off the table what hurts the tycoon most, also from the perspective of the bloc of economic interests that supported and financed him during the presidential elections: multinationals that make enormous profits in Europe while paying lower tax rates than a typical metalworker. The defeat lies here: fully accepting the American point of view and simply implementing it, conveying the message that the agreement is ultimately "fair," and waiting for the night to pass, because in three years there will be a different President.

There's no doubt that this is a disconcerting logic, especially since Europe's decision to abandon the " Green New Deal" and revert to the "War New Deal" accentuates its dependence on its American ally. It leaves it permanently in your home as an unwelcome but necessary guest, who can be forgiven for everything, including not making up his sheets and leaving his dirty laundry on the floor. Here, the trap of subservience emerges. This isn't simple servility, but the lack of an alternative vision of economics and international relations. Trump won this challenge because he knew Europe wouldn't respond by opening up elsewhere, starting with Latin America and Asia. And he knows that a Union that deindustrializes and focuses on low-value-added employment can cause a definitive shock to European societies. Which remains Trump's true objective, his ideological constituency : to destroy all that is multilateralism, to restore a foreign and trade policy based purely on power relations that degrades international law and diplomacy to a mere accessory of the past. It's no coincidence that almost no one is talking about the fiftieth anniversary of the Helsinki Conference , busy as we are contributing to a global disorder that no longer banishes from its horizon the theology of war as a means of salvation.

We are here, we must once again save the European project from those who interpret it as politically "neutral," little more than a large market constantly exposed to hostile attacks, where budget constraints are imposed that destroy a social model that has guaranteed democracy and the inclusion of the lower social classes. What is needed is a moment of truth, an assessment of this mad pursuit of Trumpism, starting first and foremost from the perspective of those who work and produce. For these, a genuine "shield" must be deployed on employment and wages, comparable to the measures adopted during the Covid crisis , when compensation, layoffs even for businesses with just one employee, and a freeze on layoffs were provided. Domestic demand must be supported , starting with Italy—which, as an exporting power, will be among the countries hardest hit by the trade war —where, however, this concern does not reside with Palazzo Chigi, which entrusts economic policy exclusively to the invisible hand of the market. And so it doesn't lift a finger to renew expired contracts, it doesn't strengthen welfare, it doesn't introduce a minimum wage, it doesn't put a single euro more into social safety nets. With anything less than this, the right will usher in a decline on whose ruins it will attempt to campaign. Let's be prepared.

*Parliamentarian, Democratic Party leadership

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Arturo Scotto