This is the show for the people. The tariffs were discussed in Davos in January and were mentioned in the Washington Post in 2023. Project 2025 exists for some years. The leaders know, the journalists know, and yet, everybody was surprised when it happened.
They pretend to be surprised and likewise, they would have objected much much stronger before, if the allies wouldn’t accept what is happening.
Yes, the world isn’t that controllable. If it were a bunch of dictators meeting up in secret, maybe, but a group of democratic elected individuals, socialites and business people (all with their own agenda!) could never get something that elaborate done without some journalist somewhere picking up on it. There are many big media corpos, but there is also enough smaller ones who haven’t said anything like ‘european governments knew about the plan with the 25% tariffs that later were lowered to the planned 10%, because they secretly agreed to decouple from china without the public finding out’.
Easy to say afterwards, but I think they were in denial. People were talking about Trump possibly bullying Canada and Greenland (Or Denmark really) because of the resources and security argument, but those were for decades close allies. Governments could imagine Trump pushing back on German car imports, or put pressure on the Netherlands because of ASML but they expected tarrifs to be bilateral and specific to certain industries; not wide across the board and also not as inconsistent as they were. Trump seems to change his mind overnight and to do that to allies makes it even worse to them. They wouldn’t be offended if these were actions against east-asian or south-america countries, they would just dislike it. But to cause so much economic problems purely for the economic benefit of the US is seen as egoistic and even though they could’ve predicted trump to not care about Europe they were naive because of the decade long partnership between US en EU.
The interesting thing about tariffs is that the EU keeps most of the tariff income. Likewise does the president. This is the perfect opportunity to make both the presidential as well as the EU budget independent of parlamentarian oversight by financing it with tariffs.
From the side of us there could be some truth in the fact that money earned by import duties could spent without parliamentary oversight (although parliament isn’t stopping anyway, so why?), but the EU is a body of cooperating nation states, no way they would get to spend the money they get from import duties ‘however they like’. Aside from that, new tariffs on American stuff have been postponed from now so there isn’t any money coming in. But even if that would be the case, there is so much trade happening with other countries that I can’t imagine the EU would really be benefiting a lot from getting some extra cash from the trade with US. In any case, it definitely wouldn’t be enough to make the entire budget independent from the parliament especially since a large part of that budget comes from member states (and in turn from their taxpayers).
This is the show for the people. The tariffs were discussed in Davos in January and were mentioned in the Washington Post in 2023. Project 2025 exists for some years. The leaders know, the journalists know, and yet, everybody was surprised when it happened.
They pretend to be surprised and likewise, they would have objected much much stronger before, if the allies wouldn’t accept what is happening.
Maybe go outside, see some sunlight or something.
You mean this is too much conspiracy?
Yes, the world isn’t that controllable. If it were a bunch of dictators meeting up in secret, maybe, but a group of democratic elected individuals, socialites and business people (all with their own agenda!) could never get something that elaborate done without some journalist somewhere picking up on it. There are many big media corpos, but there is also enough smaller ones who haven’t said anything like ‘european governments knew about the plan with the 25% tariffs that later were lowered to the planned 10%, because they secretly agreed to decouple from china without the public finding out’.
I also don’t believe that the specific ups and downs were planned, especially not the exact timing.
But the introduction of the tariffs was known.
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/01/22/economy/jamie-dimon-tariffs-get-over-it/index.html
How do you interpret it? Did the European governments know but they just expected some trade negotiations?
Easy to say afterwards, but I think they were in denial. People were talking about Trump possibly bullying Canada and Greenland (Or Denmark really) because of the resources and security argument, but those were for decades close allies. Governments could imagine Trump pushing back on German car imports, or put pressure on the Netherlands because of ASML but they expected tarrifs to be bilateral and specific to certain industries; not wide across the board and also not as inconsistent as they were. Trump seems to change his mind overnight and to do that to allies makes it even worse to them. They wouldn’t be offended if these were actions against east-asian or south-america countries, they would just dislike it. But to cause so much economic problems purely for the economic benefit of the US is seen as egoistic and even though they could’ve predicted trump to not care about Europe they were naive because of the decade long partnership between US en EU.
Thanks, I hope that it is like this.
If you don’t mind another conspiracy:
The interesting thing about tariffs is that the EU keeps most of the tariff income. Likewise does the president. This is the perfect opportunity to make both the presidential as well as the EU budget independent of parlamentarian oversight by financing it with tariffs.
From the side of us there could be some truth in the fact that money earned by import duties could spent without parliamentary oversight (although parliament isn’t stopping anyway, so why?), but the EU is a body of cooperating nation states, no way they would get to spend the money they get from import duties ‘however they like’. Aside from that, new tariffs on American stuff have been postponed from now so there isn’t any money coming in. But even if that would be the case, there is so much trade happening with other countries that I can’t imagine the EU would really be benefiting a lot from getting some extra cash from the trade with US. In any case, it definitely wouldn’t be enough to make the entire budget independent from the parliament especially since a large part of that budget comes from member states (and in turn from their taxpayers).
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_the_European_Union
The budget is 170 billion euros.
https://policy.trade.ec.europa.eu/eu-trade-relationships-country-and-region/countries-and-regions/united-states_en
Goods and services are together roughly 800 billion euros.
So at 25% tariffs, it could be possible in theory but trade would collapse.