Germany’s outgoing Chancellor voices the frustrations felt across the European ruling class at President Donald Trump tearing up the status quo on trade, decrying an “attack”.
The European Union, which has been hit with tariffs twice as high as post-Brexit Britain given the bloc’s protectionist policies and tariffs on imports, is expressing its distress and even outrage at President Trump’s bid to reform the United States’ trade relationship with the world.
Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz who is still technically in power nearly six weeks after he lost the Federal elections in February spoke in defence of the globalist status quo on Thursday. He said “This is an attack on a trade order that has created prosperity all over the globe”, called Trump’s policy “fundamentally wrong”, and warned “there will only be losers”, reports Tagesspiegel.
Scholz told the European Union to “flex its muscles”, indicating a knee-jerk reaction of retaliation rather than taking — for instance — the UK’s approach of negotiating
Several European leaders, including Germany’s Foreign Minister have tried to rebrand what Trump calls his ‘Liberation Day’ as ‘Inflation Day’, buttressing the official messaging to European voters that this change will be inflationary.
But as damaging as Germany claims Trump’s retaliation against European Union tariffs will be, the reasoning of the leftist government is that Trump’s resolve is actually weak and he will fold quickly, if only the European Union would stand up to him. Minister for Economic Affairs and Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck said he believed President Trump would cancel the tariff policy if he was put under enough international pressure, saying “This pressure must be exerted now”.
He said “everything is on the table” to fight back against the U.S. and floated new taxes on American ‘digital giants’. The view that Trump will relent quickly appears to be based too on European orthodox thinking that the U.S. will be harmed most of all by tariffs.
Elsewhere, Poland’s globalist government spoke of a “a painful and bitter blow” and France of a “catastrophe”.
Individual European states are essentially at liberty to criticise the U.S. because they have no control over their own trade policy, which is set by Brussels. The European Union, on the other hand, has to pick its words carefully and can’t condemn tariffs with a straight face given it is by design a protectionist bloc that uses tariffs widely to protect its own domestic market.
So EU Trade Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič was precise in his language, stating “Unjustified tariffs inevitably backfire” on Thursday morning, tacitly implying European tariffs are fine while American ones aren’t. The Commissioner said the EU would “calibrate our response, while allowing adequate time for talks”, but warned the bloc wouldn’t “stand idly by” if they don’t get “a fair deal” from Washington. He said he would speak to his American counterparts on Friday.
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