{"id":13965,"date":"2025-04-12T14:29:07","date_gmt":"2025-04-12T14:29:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/13965\/"},"modified":"2025-04-12T14:29:07","modified_gmt":"2025-04-12T14:29:07","slug":"breton-urges-eu-to-flex-its-muscles-on-trade-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/13965\/","title":{"rendered":"Breton urges EU to flex its muscles on trade \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;The European Commission represents 450 million citizens,&#8221; Breton said, adding that it was up to the Commission chief &#8220;to assert that weight by leading the negotiations in Washington.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Confronted with an aggressive trade agenda from the United States under Trump, Breton insists that Europe cannot afford hesitation. It is a time for unity and central leadership if the EU is to be taken seriously on the global stage, he said.<\/p>\n<p>According to Breton, the bloc&#8217;s decision to pause retaliatory measures against the U.S. on Thursday, after Trump delayed his announced tariffs, should be seen as an opportunity to act strategically.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This pause must not be seen as a sign of weakness,&#8221; Breton said. &#8220;Our territorial integrity \u2014 I\u2019m thinking of Greenland \u2014 and our democratic integrity \u2014 I\u2019m thinking of our digital regulation laws \u2014 are non-negotiable,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>The recent volatility on financial markets caused by Trump&#8217;s back and forth, shows to Breton that the U.S. &#8220;is not in a strong position,&#8221; he said. Breton underscored that the U.S. debt burden is a fundamental weakness, warning that with more than <a href=\"https:\/\/www.crfb.org\/press-releases\/national-debt-reaches-33-trillion-adds-1-trillion-debt-3-months\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">$33 trillion in liabilities<\/a>, Washington is deeply reliant on foreign creditors \u2014 including Europe \u2014 to sustain its economy.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The U.S.\u2019s creditors are the very countries they\u2019re targeting now,&#8221; Breton stressed. &#8220;It would be smart politics to treat them with care.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"&#8220;The European Commission represents 450 million citizens,&#8221; Breton said, adding that it was up to the Commission chief&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13966,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5174],"tags":[9654,1395,2825,3677,32,2000,7335,8954,299,5187,2816,38,3055,3976,366,2441,809,2443,479,9655,1201,6862,1219,6717,5465,49,1220],"class_list":{"0":"post-13965","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-capital-markets","9":"tag-china","10":"tag-debt","11":"tag-digital","12":"tag-donald-trump","13":"tag-eu","14":"tag-eu-commission","15":"tag-eu-us-trade-talks","16":"tag-europe","17":"tag-european","18":"tag-european-politics","19":"tag-french-politics","20":"tag-global-economy","21":"tag-governance","22":"tag-greenland","23":"tag-markets","24":"tag-negotiations","25":"tag-regulation","26":"tag-tariffs","27":"tag-thierry-breton","28":"tag-trade","29":"tag-trade-agreements","30":"tag-trade-war","31":"tag-transatlantic-relations","32":"tag-u-s-economy","33":"tag-united-states","34":"tag-ursula-von-der-leyen"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114325472392309425","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13965","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13965"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13965\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}