Yes, it’s been one hell of a year for the world’s biggest trading relationship. The economic consequences will take years to materialize — but the short-term impact is manifest: in forcing Europe to face up to its overreliance on the U.S. security umbrella and find new friends to trade with.
With a warning that the following might trigger flashbacks, we take you through POLITICO’s coverage of Europe’s traumatic trade year at the hands of Trump: As Trump returns to the White House, we explore how America’s trading partners are wargaming his trade threats. The big idea? Escalate to de-escalate. It’s a playbook we later saw unfold in Trump’s clashes with China and Canada. But, in the event, the EU never dares to escalate.
Trump’s return does galvanize the EU into advancing trade deals with other partners — like Mexico or Latin America’s Mercosur bloc. “Europe will keep seeking cooperation — not only with our long-time like-minded friends, but with any country we share interests with,” von der Leyen tells the World Economic Forum the day after Trump is sworn in.
As Trump announces that he will reimpose steel and aluminum tariffs, von der Leyen vows a “firm and proportionate response.” The bloc has strengthened its trade defenses since his first term, and needs to be ready to activate them, advises former top Commission trade official Jean-Luc Demarty: “Especially with a personality like Trump, if we don’t react, he’ll trample us.”
That begs the question as to whether trade wars are as easy to win, as Trump likes to say. The short answer is, of course, “no.” Trade Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič, meanwhile, packs a suitcase full of concessions on his first mission to Washington.
At the end of the month, Brussels threatens to use its trade “bazooka” — a trade-defense weapon called the Anti-Coercion Instrument — after Trump says the European Union was created to “screw” America.
We called it early with this cover story by Nicholas Vinocur and Camille Gijs: Trump wants to destroy the EU — and rebuild it in his image.
As Trump’s steel tariffs enter force, Brussels announces retaliatory measures that far exceed those it imposed in his first term. And, as he builds up to his “Liberation Day” tariff announcement, the EU signals retaliation extending beyond goods to services such as tech and banking. (None of these are implemented.)
“They rip us off. It’s so sad to see. It’s so pathetic,” Trump taunts the EU as he throws it into the sin bin along with China, Japan, Taiwan and Korea. In his Liberation Day announcement in the White House Rose Garden, Trump whacks the EU with a 20 percent “reciprocal” tariff.
Von der Leyen’s response the next morning is weak: She says only that the EU is “prepared to respond.” That’s because, even though the EU has strengthened its trade armory, its 27 member countries can’t agree to deploy it.
The bloc nonetheless busies itself with drawing up a retaliation list of goods made in states run by Trump’s Republican allies — including trucks, cigarettes and ice cream.
The EU’s hit list gets longer in response to Trump’s Liberation Day tariffs — with planes and automobiles targeted in a €100 billion counterstrike that looks scary on paper but is never acted on.
We report exclusively that Brussels is ramping up contacts with a Pacific trade group called the CPTPP. And we assess the chances of Trump pressuring the EU into a big, beautiful trade deal by threatening to raise duties on European exports to 50 percent. The verdict? Dream on!
The setting shifts to the Canadian Rockies — where a G7 summit takes on a G6 vs. Trump dynamic as other leaders seek ways to cooperate with him on Russia and China even as he pummels them with tariffs. Von der Leyen tries her best, turning hawkish on China in a bid to find common ground.
Back in Brussels, at a European leaders’ summit, von der Leyen announces her pivot to Asia — floating the idea of a world trade club without the U.S.
As the clock counts down to Trump’s July 9 deal deadline, the lack of unity among the EU’s 27 member countries undermines its credibility as a negotiating partner to be reckoned with. There’s still hope that the EU can lock in a 10 percent tariff, but should it take the deal or leave it?
The deadline slips and, as talks drag on, it looks more likely that the EU will end up with a 15 percent baseline tariff — far higher than Europe had feared at the start of Trump’s term. Brussels is still talking about retaliation but … yeah … you already know that won’t happen.
Attention shifts to Washington as the U.S. Supreme Court hears challenges to Trump’s sweeping tariffs. The justices are skeptical of his invocation of emergency powers to justify them. Even Trump appointees on the bench subject his lawyer to tough questioning.
A row flares on the first visit to Brussels by U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Trade Representative Jamieson Greer. Lutnick presses for concessions on EU digital regulation in exchange for possible tariff relief on steel. “Blackmail,” is the counterblast from Teresa Ribera, the EU’s top competition regulator.
The year ends as it started, with another Trump broadside against Europe and its leaders.
“I think they’re weak,” he tells POLITICO. “They don’t know what to do on trade, either.”