Among the many countries targeted by U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s tariff threats—a net that he recently widened to include all the BRICS countries if they so much as think of abandoning the dollar—those in Europe face some of the scariest scenarios in the short term.
Unlike China, also one of Trump’s trade targets, Europe isn’t politically monolithic, and its fragmentation advances by the day—which could hamper any unified response to Trump’s next trade war. Unlike China, Europe is not a potentially bottomless pit of purchases of U.S. goods, such as natural gas and soybeans, that might mollify the White House. Unlike China, Europe does not have a ready arsenal of critical and strategic ripostes, from all the -alliums to the antimony, to put pressure back on Washington.
But Trump’s renewed trade war might just have a silver lining for the world’s biggest economic bloc.
For a quarter of a century, the European Union has been struggling to make its own union more complete, if not perfect, and extend its trade tendrils further. It has a massive to-do list when it comes to closing the productivity gap and overcoming its strategic and economic vulnerabilities, such as those exhaustively outlined by former Italian Prime Minister and European Central Bank President Mario Draghi.
Does the potential for greater unity within the EU outweigh the potential harm caused by a trade war with the United States?
Many experts believe Trump’s tariffs could actually push Europe to accelerate its own economic integration. Do you think this potential silver lining outweighs the very real threat of a transatlantic trade war?
