By Philip Yeung
EU's capitulation
Trump calls it a great victory. EU members call it a dark day, a submission, a humiliating capitulation. The EU president, Ursula von der Leyen, proved herself a patsy. It is painful to watch her flattering Trump as a "tough but fair" negotiator. However you slice this baloney, the EU is under Trump's thumb.
The EU president's strategic blunders
She is stumbling from one strategic blunder to another.
First, she is clueless about coping with Trump's universal, one-against-all tariff war. This tariff turmoil exposes the total impotence of international agencies. The WTO watches helplessly from the sidelines, reduced to deploring the looming decline of global trade. The UN is equally powerless to stop the slaughter in Gaza. What options are left in this asymmetric contest? Well, try building ad hoc alliances. Anyone with a pulse can see the dangers of a unipolar world. China is the only big player at peace. Yet, EU leaders eyeing China through a US prism continue to peddle the "China threat" fiction, though no conflict is China-related. Without China as a countervailing force, the US swaggers as an unstoppable rule-breaker and global order disrupter. Elbowing China out of the equation is an unforgivable folly.
Don't fall for Trump's "divide and conquer" game plan. Counter it with a coalition. I am dumbfounded that India, Canada, and the EU have opted to "go it alone" and find themselves eaten alive by a hungry beast. Trump had Von der Leyen for lunch. She returned home in shame, carrying the stigma of one-sided agreement, a 15% tariff on its US-bound exports, and an agreement to invest $600 billion in the US. German autos face a market shock. Switzerland is up against the wall with a crippling 39% tariff on its luxury goods. It is a body blow to its economy.
EU leaves China's advantage untapped
The EU president has brushed aside the obvious strategic advantage of aligning itself with China, the only country that carries enough clout with America. Von der Leyen is wearing ideological blinkers, refusing to see China for the benign major power that it is. She and her ilk make the fatal error of viewing China as another Russia hungry for territorial conquests. Wake up, before it is too late! The militarization of the South China Sea islands serves only one singular defensive purpose: to break the US encirclement of China and keep the sea lanes open for trade. As for Taiwan, it is not another Ukraine. It is strictly a domestic issue and best left to self-resolution. She is brainwashed into misreading China's intentions. Today's China is a far cry from its Cultural Revolution days: a future-oriented state, rule-governed, law-abiding and tech-savvy. Having China in your corner is the only way to keep a bullying America at bay.
Trump's tariffs are not about trade imbalance, but about power imbalance and the lack of leverage. The EU needs US military protection, and Trump knows it. Alone, a middling country like Canada is at Trump's mercy. Trump's tariffs on Canada have suddenly jumped from 25% to 35%, as a punishment for its decision to recognize Palestine as a state, a decision joined by Britain and France, but both are spared the penalty. This is pure geopolitical power play and the death of diplomacy.
Time for Von der Leyen's exit
The EU's humiliation is a strategic and diplomatic failure. Von der Leyen lacks the mental dexterity to lead the EU Commission, leaving it saddled with an unequal agreement unpalatable to its members. Under Trump, the global order has shifted, requiring a nimble strategic adjustment to tame rampant US exceptionalism and isolationism. Its fossilized foreign policy thinking is endangering the EU. She is left to eat the bitter fruit of her low-level strategic blunder. She has overstayed her welcome. Time to step aside for a higher political IQ.
India, too, is cooked, hit with 25% tariffs plus penalties for buying Russian oil and gas. One by one, trading nations are steamrollered into submission.
China-tough against Trump-bullying
China alone is hanging tough, refusing to budge an inch. China can play tit-for-tat and call Trump's bluff, because it holds several aces: the nuclear option of curtailing the sale of rare earths essential for US military and high-tech equipment, the jittery US bonds, and a cascade of critical supplies such as active pharmaceutical ingredients, electronic components, and solar panels etc. China occupies a pivotal and irreplaceable role in the global supply chains. And Trump knows this. When China refuses to buckle, America comes begging. The geopolitical landscape is shifting. Alone, you lose. Together, you win. Forget the mathematics of the tariffs. Your trump card is China.
China-blind at your own risk
The EU is poorly led. It has no diplomacy and no strategy. In the Trump era, you are China-blind at your own peril. Ideology is so last century. In this category-5 hurricane, China is your safe harbor and strategic anchor. Don't leave home without it.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of DotDotNews.
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