Bring on the 30%!

Without much to say, Trump announced that European products will face 30% tariffs. He always presents an exaggerated number and then claims he reached a 10% agreement, but only for some products. Has the American president reverted to his old gunslinger style, never hitting the target?

We all know that Trump is a maniac. That he's prone to outbursts, too. That he certainly has good and bad days. What Trump doesn't know, and no one in his administration has the courage to tell him—not the Secretary of State, nor the Secretary of Finance, nor the Secretary of Commerce—is that no one takes his threats seriously anymore.

Since there are so many and so randomly distributed, there's always enough time for him to wake up in the right place. It's worth remembering that he only has three years and six months left until he leaves the White House. It seems like an eternity, but time flies. For Trump, the tariffs are a thing of the past. They still cause shock, but his focus has changed.

Now he wants to be the Nobel Peace Prize laureate. Let's examine his credentials: did he end the state of war in Gaza? Did he stop Putin, who daily launches hundreds of drones against Ukraine? Did he instill so much fear in Iran that he collapsed the theocratic regime and its nuclear ambitions? A single one would suffice.

Given this record, no amount of peace would justify a Nobel Prize for Donald Trump. He has three years to demonstrate what he's capable of. Tariffs are now only his third or fourth priority. He'd love to welcome von der Leyen to the Oval Office for a political ambush, but with President António Costa and the Foreign Affairs Commissioner watching closely, he wouldn't get far. Neither he nor his vice-president, who is particularly agitated, would.