War and shame

August 5, 2025

The preliminary agreement between Ursula von der Leyen. Meanwhile, Donald Trump concluded in Turnberry on July 28 was the subject of two series of reactions in Europe: some said that the worst was avoided, that is to say the 30% customs duties of which Trump threatened the EU, as well as prohibitive rights in certain key sectors such as steel and automobile; that this agreement would give visibility to European operators in the chaotic universe resulting from American trade policy; And that finally, the Europeans remained masters of their standards, tax and regulatory, especially in the field of digital and AI, while Trump, pushed by the GAFAM, sought to treat them as non-valiant obstacles and to limit them or to oppose countermeasures, to which he had given up.

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In the opposite direction, we argued war shame that the agreement was, in the background and in the form a humiliation calculated for the president of the commission, summoned to Turnberry, where Trump devoted more time to her golf course than to negotiate with her; that the agreement, unequal and discriminatory, was the product of the inability of Europeans to agree on effective countermeasures against American unilateral measures when they had its full capacity; That this agreement was not one, the reports of the two parties diverging strongly, and that European “commitments” on American weapons and LNG purchases, as in investments in the United States, came out of the field of EU skills and had no value.

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It is difficult to decide between these two theses, and we can, in passing, note that France, the most unanimously critical European country of the agreement, was not the best placed to do so, its trade with the United war shame States being limited and in balance, unlike strongly surplus countries like Germany and Italy which had more to lose its firmness.

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In these columns, we were able to read a rare French defense of the agreement, presented by Maxime Lefèvre as resulting from a “round back policy”, which avoided confrontation with America, without representing a capitulation. Nevertheless,

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Trump’s diplomatic practices, however, make the limit between round back policy and capitulation: do not give in to extravagant requests, to be satisfied with an agreement which nevertheless remains obviously unbalanced, is it very different from a capitulation? Consequently, Especially since the EU went without fighting: it has not implemented any of the purely commercial. moreover limited countermeasures, which it had laboriously prepared; As for using the “anti-coercion” instruments available to it, beyond the strict sense in the strict sense, in the fields of services, intellectual property and war shame investments, it has never been seriously questioned.

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Beyond these arguments that the opponents of the agreement have argued, it seems to us that it is lighting up an even more unfavorable day if it is taken out of the commercial framework to replace it in the general field of American foreign policy and Euro-American and global political balances. Furthermore,

Trade represents, in this extended context, three essential things for the EU. Therefore, It is first of all the domain of external action where it is supposed to be institutionally the most united. Furthermore, the best capable of speaking in a voice; It is the- only- compartment of economic power where it is equal to the greatest and is supposed to speak of an equals with the United States; It is an area where she speaks not only for herself and in the defense of her interests war shame but in favor of an international order legally organized around the WTO and some main principles-non-discrimination, transparency and predictability, reciprocity, etc.

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On these three plans, the agreement of July 28 is a defeat for the EU: its inability to bring out a position of firmness against Trump is patent. It signals the glaring limits of the community method in a universe marked by uninhibited power relations. the contempt for international standards and institutions. It is a formidable argument for the forces hostile to the EU. its practices and its institutions, starting with the extreme-right European.

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While the EU had, on the merits, economic power and legal instruments to stand up to the United States, that it had no more to lose than them in commercial escalation, it chose to assume a structurally unequal outcome: access without rights to the EU for American products, a universal basic rate war shame of 15% for European products. It is a tribute regime, to which access to the American market for European countries is now conditioned. Having accepted it once, how can they get rid of it?

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The argument of the “round back” assumes that, the past storm, beneficial forces allow a return to normal: what arguments these forces-if they exist in the United States-will they use to plead it with American opinion and voters, to whom Trump can say: “You can see that it works”. Even though the legal basis of its prices is challenged before the American justice. the agreement with the EU provides the executive the argument that they proceed from a responsibility for conducting the foreign policy which is a matter of it and not the congress.

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Finally, in the considerations that led the EU to the agreement of July 28, has there been a place for war shame the defense of the multilateral trade system, the WTO and its principles, while the EU is pronounced to defend them and, more generally, to embody multilateralism? The principle of the most favored nation. equal treatment, transparency, among other cardinal principles of international trade, have been trampled on, and the Trump method – customs duties as an instruments of extortion and political blackmail – validated.

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EU’s loss of credit to all those attached to the principles of international trade and the liberal international order is immense. The EU was the only force that could strive to defend them. She was in any interest, and she gave it up when nothing forced her. We will send back to convince. to the buried editorial of the Financial Times On the eve of the Turnberry agreement: “The EU does not need an agreement with Trump; She has the means to resist him. »»

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Can Turnberry’s decline at least guarantee peace and avoid the trade war whose Trump threatens? Nothing is less certain: what has been agreed between Ursula von der Leyen. Trump is not very clear, and experience shows that the difficulties with the Trump administration do not cease with the conclusion of an agreement; Enhanced by his success and the contempt that inspires in him the EU, Trump may ask him always more, in particular on the chapter of the regulation of digital and AI that the EU recklessly flatters to have excluded from the agreement: moreover, why would it be deprived of it?

From this triple defeat, can the EU get up? This would imply three conditions: that it becomes aware of the reality of the Trump phenomenon. which is a force hostile to Europe far beyond commercial interests, a threat to democracy and for international order; that she war shame assumes that, in the test of strength he imposes on him, the old recipes of a civilized negotiation – saving time, making the round back – guarantee defeat; That finally, the EU covers a little of its self-esteem and remembers that the shame of Turnberry in the trade war, it is likely to have both: war and shame.

We will see, even if the experience does not encourage optimism on the possibility of seeing these conditions come true. If there is one thing on which partisans. opponents of the Turnberry agreement agree, it is that it is only a step and that nothing is definitively settled. New adventures, surprises, and – why not? – A European start is possible. During the work, chaos continues!