The meeting between US President Trump and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in Scotland lasted less than an hour and resulted in the EU’s complete capitulation to the US. The fact that Trump proudly described the outcome as the “greatest deal ever” is neither exaggerated nor surprising, because there are 15% tariffs on EU goods exported to the US and zero tariffs on goods imported into the EU from the US. Tariffs on aluminium and steel are excluded, where the US tariff rate remains unchanged at 50%. In addition, von der Leyen committed to buying liquefied natural gas worth $250 billion. Not once, but annually.
The question is: Who authorized the Commission President to do this deal? Tariffs fall within the Commission’s remit, but energy purchase contracts are currently negotiated between EU member states and supplier countries. The answer is simple: No one authorized von der Leyen to do so.
Von der Leyen also promised Trump an additional $600 billion in investment, with an eye on the EU’s rearmament plans. The EU is planning to borrow money to buy weapons from the US. From an economic perspective, this is perhaps the stupidest thing anyone could do, namely to take on debt to help another economy grow while the infrastructure within the EU is crumbling. What von der Leyen “negotiated” is nothing more than her willingness to degrade the EU to a US colony.
The irony is that the European Commission is praising this dependence that the EU has fallen into as progress. The purchase of energy from the US is supposedly used for “diversification”. A press release states: “The purchase of US energy products will diversify our sources of supply and contribute to Europe’s energy security. We will replace Russian gas and oil with large-scale purchases of US liquefied natural gas, oil and nuclear fuel.”
Even George Orwell would probably not have come up with such an announcement. With the 18th package of economic sanctions, the EU imposed sanctions on third countries, such as India, through which Russian oil and oil products have so far entered the EU. They don’t want that either, they rely almost exclusively on the US, they transfer a quasi-monopoly to the EU countries and at the same time they claim to have diversified their energy supply and that it is now more secure. The EU has fallen into the trap of dependency. The “deal” will lead to progressive deindustrialization and therefore to declining prosperity throughout the EU.
A deindustrialization that has already been taking place in Europe since the EU gave up on cheap Russian energy sources. High energy prices ensure that most European industries are no longer competitive internationally. This leaves them with the choice of either going bankrupt or moving their production to other countries.
We recall that the Biden administration has enacted the “inflation law” of almost $400 billion, which is intended to pay subsidies for industries from the EU that migrate to the US. With her promise that the EU will invest $600 billion in the US, von der Leyen promised not to compensate for this exit of European industries, but rather to support it.
“the EU’s weak negotiating position stems from the fact that European governments have been desperately relying on selfish positions due to their disastrous support for Ukraine, instead of confronting Trump’s blackmail attempts, it can be de facto said that the EU has sacrificed itself for Ukraine.”
This shows the full stupidity of the EU leadership and its member states, because even if their desire to help Ukraine was sincere, they should have known that a financially weak and disastrously indebted EU would not be able to significantly help Ukraine for a long time. But that does not seem to be the point. The agreement between Trump and von der Leyen has confirmed once again that the EU is sacrificing itself for US interests by continuing the US war against Russia in Ukraine, which is not about helping Ukraine, but about weakening Russia through it, alone and at its own risk and cost.
In conclusion, the political decisions of the EU and most of the member states look more like they want to deliberately destroy their own economy. Von der Leyen sold the EU to the US. Now the probability that the EU will survive its own economic decline as a whole and united is extremely small. Von der Leyen claims that Putin wants to destroy the EU.
But Putin would never be able to do what the Commission President did in breaking up the EU, even if he wanted to. Trump humiliated Von der Leyen, but of course Brussels “bought the land”. The transatlantic alliance remains inviolable and sacred even under penalty of destruction.
