Trump\u2019s singular answer to all these problems is tariffs \u2014 \u201cthe most beautiful word in the world.\u201d He invoked national security as a justification for 50 percent tariffs on steel imports from Canada, Europe and elsewhere; 25 percent tariffs on autos and auto parts; and threatened to do the same with pharmaceutical and semiconductor imports. He also levied an across-the-board 10 percent tariff on all imports, while promising to raise these to 20 percent or more, unless new trade deals are agreed by July 9.<\/p>\n
Interestingly, while China and other countries that aren\u2019t allied with the U.S. have also been targeted with tariffs, Russia has been spared such levies. In fact, Trump urged Putin to end the war in Ukraine by promising increased trade.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s right. Russia \u2014 a true threat to European security \u2014 is being offered what Trump called<\/a> a \u201ctremendous\u201d opportunity for massive growth.<\/p>\n Finally, while it might not have the most immediate impact, it\u2019s the Trump administration\u2019s political offensive on its allies \u2014 and especially against Europe \u2014 that will have long-lasting consequences.<\/p>\n It started with Vice President JD Vance\u2019s speech at the Munich Security Conference in February, where he warned a stunned audience that \u201cthe threat that I worry the most about vis-\u00e0-vis Europe is not Russia, it\u2019s not China,\u201d but \u201cthe threat from within, the retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values.\u201d It didn\u2019t escape many in the room that this language was what German leaders used in the 1930s to accuse Jews and others of treachery.<\/p>\n This attack on European values has escalated ever since. Top administration officials have openly sided with far-right forces in Germany, Romania and Poland in the run-up to national elections. Then, when the German domestic intelligence agency classified the far-right Alternative for Germany party as an extremist organization, Secretary of State Marco Rubio took to X to complain<\/a>: \u201cThis is not democracy\u2014it\u2019s tyranny in disguise.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Trump\u2019s singular answer to all these problems is tariffs \u2014 \u201cthe most beautiful word in the world.\u201d He…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":187835,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5174],"tags":[943,1395,6215,32,2000,6562,299,5187,1105,805,77074,1824,40,475,806,2122,601,2452,2821,32949,602,811,479,1201,6717,49,333,335],"class_list":{"0":"post-187834","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-canada","9":"tag-china","10":"tag-cooperation","11":"tag-donald-trump","12":"tag-eu","13":"tag-eu27","14":"tag-europe","15":"tag-european","16":"tag-far-right","17":"tag-foreign-policy","18":"tag-from-across-the-pond","19":"tag-germany","20":"tag-immigration","21":"tag-imports","22":"tag-industry","23":"tag-japan","24":"tag-jd-vance","25":"tag-media","26":"tag-nato","27":"tag-nato-summit","28":"tag-pete-hegseth","29":"tag-security","30":"tag-tariffs","31":"tag-trade","32":"tag-transatlantic-relations","33":"tag-united-states","34":"tag-vladimir-putin","35":"tag-war-in-ukraine"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114690644006975358","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187834","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=187834"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187834\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/187835"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=187834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=187834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=187834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}