Trump’s chaos-monkey trade policy looked at once again. No “art of the deal'“, but only a cascade of threats, double-crosses, and boasts; thus uncertainty reigns supreme and, behind, the bravado...
She argues that the "ostentatious displays of respect and deference" are not really attempts to appease but rather, to pretend and extend:
"Essentially, what Europeans need is time. [...] To quote a European defence industry representative, when asked what the US-provided capabilities are that Europe cannot replace, “there is nothing we cannot do, some things just take more time and cost more money”. Europeans have now committed to spending the money, what they need is more time.
That means, then, that the priority for Europe is to manage Trump in a way that enables an orderly burden shifting and postpones full American disengagement from Europe as far into the future as possible."
Also, Trump reinstated trade talks with Canada after Canada withdrew its digital services tax. Britain was due to make the same digital services tax on major US platform companies. Has this been quietly dropped, or is it leverage for Trump to break the "trade deal" with Britain?
If the nations and trading blocs of the world were steadfast and hit back hard on these so-called tariff threats, with the result that goods, including grocery food items, disappeared from the shelves, wouldn't that precipitate real pushback from the population of the US against their reps in Congress and the administration? The only reason I can see for not doing so is to provide a cushion to redirect trade away from the US...possibly permanently. It will take time.
What the EU and Britain could do now is to insist on only European arms manufacture for defence against Russia. Deprive the US arms manufacturers of their sales, that even now might be suspect (c.f. RAF F35 stranded in India with a difficult to diagnose and fix technical fault. Hardly a selling point for such an expensive warplane). Perhaps it is better to manufacture existing fighters that are cheaper, more repairable, and better for the local economy than importing them. Same for replacing US Trident nuclear missiles in the small British submarine fleet.) Europe, including Britain, needs to take more seriously the unreliability of the US as a NATO partner, and assume the worst, especially if NATO is activated in the case of Russian aggression. If Fiona Hill is correct, Europe and Russia are already as war, but not yet in a conventional hot war, but not a cold war either.
No prime minister or president can stake their nations liberty on the whims, prejudices, egos and envy of red hat American voters. They will all need to move away from American military suppliers and alliances.
Certainly nobody liked them except the UAW—the auto companies saw them as something that made it much harder for them to compete with Japan- and German-based auto producers with their transnational integrated value chains:
> Thomas L. Hutcheson: 'And note that the NAFTA changes at least on autos were for the worse, not better...
From the Guardian: "as he continues to shift plans"
That's in a subhead, and seems fair enough, given a stock vocabulary ill seated to the needs of the moment. The word "plans" is a bit strong, but "stances" doesn't really read very well. In a normal world this might be a classic understatement with comedic intent, but in our world this is probably as close as one is going to come to an accurate formulation in a newspaper subhead. Though perhaps "chaos-monkey" can be normalized as the epithet of choice, at some point.
By the way, they're using "Madman theory" at the BBC, with what seems to be admiration.
How is this not biting GDP yet? Is it that it's all smoke and mirrors, that actual tariffs have not really changed? Isn't that likely to prove the real story? Constant posturing with no effect?
There is some interesting analysis of European foreign policy here by Minna Ålander: https://phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/buying-time-europes-trump-dilemma
She argues that the "ostentatious displays of respect and deference" are not really attempts to appease but rather, to pretend and extend:
"Essentially, what Europeans need is time. [...] To quote a European defence industry representative, when asked what the US-provided capabilities are that Europe cannot replace, “there is nothing we cannot do, some things just take more time and cost more money”. Europeans have now committed to spending the money, what they need is more time.
That means, then, that the priority for Europe is to manage Trump in a way that enables an orderly burden shifting and postpones full American disengagement from Europe as far into the future as possible."
Pity I didn't read your comment before I commented. It seems that Europe is doing what I surmised might be happening.
Thanks for the link.
I thought is had been pointed out before that Trump's trade deals are not official, and would need to be ratified by Congress. This article on Govtrack.us indicates that what Trump is doing is illegal. So why isn't this being seriously litigated? https://www.govtrack.us/posts/519/2025-07-07_trumps-tariffs-are-unlawful-how-the-nondelegation-doctrine-limits-congress
Also, Trump reinstated trade talks with Canada after Canada withdrew its digital services tax. Britain was due to make the same digital services tax on major US platform companies. Has this been quietly dropped, or is it leverage for Trump to break the "trade deal" with Britain?
If the nations and trading blocs of the world were steadfast and hit back hard on these so-called tariff threats, with the result that goods, including grocery food items, disappeared from the shelves, wouldn't that precipitate real pushback from the population of the US against their reps in Congress and the administration? The only reason I can see for not doing so is to provide a cushion to redirect trade away from the US...possibly permanently. It will take time.
What the EU and Britain could do now is to insist on only European arms manufacture for defence against Russia. Deprive the US arms manufacturers of their sales, that even now might be suspect (c.f. RAF F35 stranded in India with a difficult to diagnose and fix technical fault. Hardly a selling point for such an expensive warplane). Perhaps it is better to manufacture existing fighters that are cheaper, more repairable, and better for the local economy than importing them. Same for replacing US Trident nuclear missiles in the small British submarine fleet.) Europe, including Britain, needs to take more seriously the unreliability of the US as a NATO partner, and assume the worst, especially if NATO is activated in the case of Russian aggression. If Fiona Hill is correct, Europe and Russia are already as war, but not yet in a conventional hot war, but not a cold war either.
No prime minister or president can stake their nations liberty on the whims, prejudices, egos and envy of red hat American voters. They will all need to move away from American military suppliers and alliances.
Tariffs are 1.3% of GDP.
And note that the NAFTA changes at least on autos were for the worse, not better.
Certainly nobody liked them except the UAW—the auto companies saw them as something that made it much harder for them to compete with Japan- and German-based auto producers with their transnational integrated value chains:
> Thomas L. Hutcheson: 'And note that the NAFTA changes at least on autos were for the worse, not better...
From the Guardian: "as he continues to shift plans"
That's in a subhead, and seems fair enough, given a stock vocabulary ill seated to the needs of the moment. The word "plans" is a bit strong, but "stances" doesn't really read very well. In a normal world this might be a classic understatement with comedic intent, but in our world this is probably as close as one is going to come to an accurate formulation in a newspaper subhead. Though perhaps "chaos-monkey" can be normalized as the epithet of choice, at some point.
By the way, they're using "Madman theory" at the BBC, with what seems to be admiration.
It was to be expected, None of these countries are offering a gilded plane to the orange extortionist.
How is this not biting GDP yet? Is it that it's all smoke and mirrors, that actual tariffs have not really changed? Isn't that likely to prove the real story? Constant posturing with no effect?
https://open.substack.com/pub/econjared/p/tariff-passthrough-to-prices-where?r=ltge3&utm_medium=ios