The Cost No One Talks About

Trump’s Economic War Against Europe:

(In spite of a pair of predictable hecklers, it seems my previous attempt was appreciated by the forum as a whole. I’ll make a second attempt at an in-depth thread in my own style—and let the hecklers be damned.)


It should be said plainly: Trump is waging an economic war against Europe. Not a conventional one, of course—there are no troops on the ground—but the consequences are just as real, and arguably just as destructive. The tariffs, trade threats, and persistent attacks on European industry are not just reckless gestures; they are deliberate instruments of coercion, aimed at bending Europe to his will. And make no mistake—this is a two-way street. America, the supposed beneficiary, is suffering just as much.


Consider the steel and aluminum tariffs. Ostensibly about “national security,” they are in reality a blunt instrument of negotiation. European producers respond with their own measures, American exporters face retaliatory tariffs, and the result is not negotiation but mutual damage. The European market shrinks for American goods, and domestic industries—especially those reliant on imported materials—pay the price. It is a textbook example of short-term posturing masquerading as strategic gain.

Then there are the trade deals he dismantles or threatens. From automobiles to agricultural goods, the uncertainty alone stifles investment. Companies hesitate, supply chains wobble, and markets fluctuate—not because Europe is misbehaving, but because the administration has decided that destabilizing the system is itself a form of leverage. For an economy as interconnected as the United States’, this is self-inflicted harm.


And yet, the public rhetoric is the same: Europe is the enemy, America must “win.” Winning, in this context, is a vague abstraction. In practice, it is a destructive cycle: tariffs lead to retaliation, retaliation undermines U.S. exporters, exporters cut back or raise prices, and consumers—American and European alike—bear the burden. It is a war with no front lines, yet casualties are everywhere.


Europe suffers predictably: slower growth, disrupted supply chains, strained diplomatic relations. America suffers in parallel: higher costs, reduced export competitiveness, and a reputation for unpredictability that investors cannot ignore. To frame it as a unilateral advantage is to ignore the reality that global economies are entangled, and harm inflicted abroad ricochets home with brutal efficiency.


Trump’s economic war is, ultimately, a paradox: designed to demonstrate power, it exposes weakness; intended to coerce, it destabilizes; and under the guise of winning, it produces mutual loss. If anything, the only beneficiaries are the rhetoric itself—the constant performance of strength—while the actual economies, both European and American, falter under the weight of its consequences.