When US President Donald Trump and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen shook hands at Trump’s Scottish golf resort on Sunday, they were not just announcing a new trade deal — they were formalizing Europe’s economic and ideological surrender. By agreeing to 15 percent tariffs on most exports to the US, the EU has capitulated to Trump’s zero-sum worldview. In doing so, it has abandoned the principles of multilateralism that have long guided global trade.
The economic consequences are immediate and severe. European exporters now face tariffs nearly 10 times higher than the previous trade-weighted average of 1.6 percent. Volkswagen alone has reported a 1.3 billion euro (US$1.5 billion) hit due to higher US tariffs.
However, the tariff rate itself is just part of the problem. The real damage lies in what the EU agreed to pay for the “privilege” of maintaining access to the US market: a commitment to purchase US$750 billion worth of US energy over three years and to invest another US$600 billion in the US economy.
These staggering sums would inevitably divert resources from European development and innovation while legitimizing bilateral coercion over the multilateral, rules-based WTO system. As critics have rightly pointed out, this massive outflow comes directly at the expense of domestic investment.
What makes the EU’s surrender especially troubling is how unnecessary it was. As the US’ largest economic partner, with nearly US$1 trillion in annual trade, the EU has considerable leverage. While the US runs a US$235.6 billion goods deficit with the EU, the bloc’s 148 billion euro services deficit with the US offered clear avenues for retaliation, from digital taxes to restrictions on US tech giants.
Weeks earlier, anticipating a stalemate, European policymakers had prepared countertariffs targeting 93 billion euros worth of US goods, but the EU had far more potent weapons at its disposal. Its Anti-Coercion Instrument, for example, could have barred US companies from government contracts, revoked intellectual-property rights, and imposed broader trade restrictions. Yet national leaders, fearing Trump’s retaliation and under pressure from domestic industries eager to maintain access to the US market, refused to authorize von der Leyen to use any of these tools, forcing her to negotiate from a position of weakness.
The contrast with other US trading partners could not be starker. When the UK secured a 10 percent tariff rate from Trump in May, European leaders expressed concern about accepting similar terms. Now, they hail 15 percent tariffs on EU exports as a diplomatic breakthrough. The uncomfortable truth is that the UK, acting alone, negotiated better terms than the EU as a whole.
This failure exposes the fundamental weakness of European governance. Lacking a true EU-wide governance system, the bloc remains incapable of translating competing national agendas into a unified position. With von der Leyen hamstrung by member states prioritizing narrow domestic interests over European cohesion, the result was a deal that pleases no one but Trump and locks Europe into a state of structured dependency.
The EU’s failure to push back against Trump is especially troubling given its stated goal of achieving strategic autonomy. Some might argue that the deal — technically not a formal trade agreement, but rather a set of statements outlining an ongoing negotiation process — buys time. By appeasing Trump, the argument goes, the European Commission has maintained transatlantic ties, while creating space for future carve-outs.
If this were truly a time-buying strategy, we would expect the EU to take concrete steps to advance strategic autonomy: boosting defense spending, accelerating supply-chain diversification and investing in retaliatory capabilities. Instead, after years of pledging to reduce reliance on foreign powers, EU leaders chose to replace Russian energy imports with US supplies and commit to massive purchases of US military equipment.
Europe’s subordination both reflects and reinforces the continent’s dependence on US power. For decades, European countries have failed to meet NATO’s defense-spending targets, content to shelter under the US nuclear umbrella. Now, the same deference is playing out on the economic front, as the EU proves unable to marshal its collective weight in the face of Trump’s pressure tactics. This military and economic dependency has created a structural imbalance that extends across defense, trade and energy, leaving Europe in a state of permanent vassalization.
Trump’s ability to extract sweeping economic concessions and defense-spending commitments shows how effectively the US can weaponize Europe’s security anxieties to pursue broader geopolitical objectives. The US$600 billion investment pledge, much of it earmarked for military-equipment purchases, forces Europe to subsidize US defense contractors, while undermining its own industrial base.
By giving in to Trump’s demands, the EU missed a rare opportunity to demonstrate that large markets cannot be bullied. Instead of setting a powerful precedent for other regions confronting US economic pressure, it has validated Trump’s transactional approach, emboldening not only future US administrations, but also other global powers eager to turn trade into an instrument of geopolitical coercion.
While the immediate crisis might have passed, the long-term damage to EU credibility and autonomy would be long-lasting. The widespread perception that Europe surrenders without resistance would undoubtedly invite further challenges to European interests.
Rather than attempting to shift the blame to von der Leyen, EU member states must ask themselves whether avoiding a trade war was worth abandoning Europe’s foundational commitment to multilateralism and forfeiting any credible path toward strategic autonomy. Until European leaders find the courage to break the cycle of dependency by empowering EU institutions to act decisively against external coercion, these humiliating capitulations would only multiply, reducing the continent to a prosperous yet powerless appendage of the US empire.
Alberto Alemanno, professor of EU law at HEC Paris and visiting professor at the College of Europe in Bruges and Natolin, is founder of The Good Lobby and the author of Lobbying for Change: Find Your Voice to Create a Better Society.
Copyright: Project Syndicate
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