Surrender is always one way to end a war. The capitulation of the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, to Donald Trump’s demands for a grossly lopsided trade deal in which most EU goods exported to the US will face far higher tariffs than US products face in the EU is not only humiliating; it also does not prevent a transatlantic trade war.
Indeed, to paraphrase the Prussian military thinker Carl von Clausewitz, it is merely the pursuit of a trade war by other means. After six months of bullying by Trump, the Europeans have acquiesced to a provisional settlement that penalises their exporters and commits the world’s largest trade bloc to buying hundreds of billions of dollars of US fossil fuels and weapons for the duration of his presidency, rather than risk the blanket 30% tariffs he had threatened from 1 August.
