Yesterday, in an unhinged oval office press conference during which the US president insisted that “a lot of people are saying ‘maybe we’d like a dictator’,” Donald Trump trumpeted his success in commanding European leaders to do his bidding. “They jokingly call me the President of Europe,” he told reporters. “Which is an honour. I like Europe. And I like those people. They’re good people. They’re great leaders.”
The saddest part about this display is that our leaders here in Europe are probably overjoyed by this statement, because just a few months ago he was calling them scum who were “very unfair” to the United States. What changed? We’ve now had Europe’s summer of surrender, during which our leaders have sold their citizens up the river by committing to European wealth transfer to America. They’ve committed to buy American weapons with a nonsensical military spending promise. They’ve endorsed an illegal 15% tariff. They’ve promised to adjust EU legislation to suit the US president’s desires. They’ve lined up like eager schoolchildren in Washington to pay tribute to the US president last week so that he wouldn’t turn Ukraine over to the Russians (resulting in the epoch-defining photo above). The European leaders’ “daddy” strategy of obsequious flattery has worked in getting Trump to stop personally attacking them - for now. But at what cost to the citizens they are supposed to represent?
Given the grovelling we’ve already seen disclosed in the private text messages sent by NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte to Donald Trump, I suspect that it was he who jokingly told Trump he is now the “President of Europe”. But perhaps in their extraordinary efforts to flatter the US president in Washington last week, the other leaders said this as well. Starmer, Macron, Meloni, Merz and Stubb should all be asked directly whether they made this “joke” behind closed doors with Trump, or whether they were present and agreed when someone else (likely Rutte) made the “joke”. I don’t expect they will give a truthful answer, but they should be asked anyway. Because given his track record, it’s likely Trump would out them if they deny it.
Europe's surrender summer
Those defending the EU's "trade deal" with Trump are missing the forest for the trees. Whether or not the EU can actually make the payments promised, von der Leyen has cemented subservience.
After Trump made the comments yesterday, I saw a lot of Europeans on social media reacting with incredulity. “No one in Europe is calling him the president of Europe. We call him a fucking moron,” said one X user from the UK. “No, we don’t. Thank you, but you can keep him. Preferably in jail,” replied a BlueSky user from the Netherlands. These people don’t seem to be aware that while the people of Europe may not be praising Trump, their elected leaders are. This is a subject that has not gotten much big-picture examination in the European media. But with their actions over the past months, our leaders in Europe have done perhaps irreparable damage to this continent’s dignity and independence. If the people of Europe were paying attention they would be enraged. But they are not.
Washington gains veto power over EU legislation
Von der Leyen's trade war surrender deal promises to lower Europe's vehicle safety and pollution standards - just one of several legislative changes pledged to Trump.
On Friday, the EU and US put out a joint statement giving more details to the “trade deal” agreed at Trump’s golf course in Scotland a month ago. We now have more information about just how much the EU signed away, in exchange for nothing in return other than avoiding (for now) Trump’s extortionate threats. The text commits to making a number of changes to EU legislation in response to US demands - mostly in climate legislation. The EU has committed to making adjustments to three laws that have raised "concerns" on the US side: the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), which was set to introduce import taxes for countries with less stringent climate legislation to combat carbon leakage, and the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD)/Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), both of which are supposed to require companies operating in Europe (including American ones) to report on their climate impact.
Perhaps most alarming for European citizens is the text’s promise to lower the EU’s vehicle safety and pollution standards. “With respect to automobiles, the US and EU intend to accept and provide mutual recognition to each other’s standards,” the statement says. James Nix, Vehicles Policy Manager at the NGO Transport & Environment, said this would force EU lawmakers to change European standards in order to allow “monster US pick-up trucks” on European roads. “To allow more US SUVs and pick-ups to be sold with far lower safety and air pollution standards would be a betrayal of all EU citizens,” he warned.
But this is only one of many betrayals of EU citizens committed by President von der Leyen and national European leaders (including Keir Starmer) over the past seven months. Rather than standing up for Europe, our leaders have rolled over and pursued a strategy of desperate flattery to avoid Trump’s wrath. It is obviously short-sighted thinking, but our European leaders have no other ideas. Already, we can see that the actions taken over this surrender summer have only bought Europe a temporary reprieve. Because Trump has learned that he can push Europe around - that Europeans have proven even more obedient than his own citizens. It is no wonder he thinks he is now “President of Europe”.
Last week, the chairman of the US FTC sent a letter to 13 US tech giants warning them that if they comply with EU digital laws (specifically the Digital Services Act which will soon start regulating social media) they could face retaliation from the US government. The letter says the EU law is trying to "surveil and censor" US citizens with its legislation. The US State Department has over the past month ratcheted up its attacks on the DSA, instructing national diplomats to start an aggressive attack against the “Orwellian” EU legislation (that’s pretty rich coming from the Trump regime). US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has floated denying entry to the US for EU lawmakers who have passed the legislation. Then yesterday, in a post on Truth Social, Trump said that unless Europe cancels its “discriminatory” digital legislation, “I, as President of the United States, will impose substantial additional Tariffs on that Country's Exports to the U.S.A., and institute Export restrictions on our Highly Protected Technology and Chips." So much for the trade war truce.
So, has Europe’s surrender bought us peace for our time? It does not appear so. Their actions over the past months have demonstrated to the Trump regime that these are willing vassal states that can be easily controlled, and the Trump regime will now act accordingly. You can see that in the triumphal way they’ve been talking about Europe over the past two months, like Roman emperors talking about Egypt after its subjugation.
Earlier this month US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told the Fox Business network that the US will treat the wealth of US allies (Europe, Japan, Canada, Australia) as an American "sovereign wealth fund". The allies’ spending will be used "largely at the [US] president's discretion". They will be told how to use their money in order to build American factories and reshore American industries. Even the Fox News host was surprised, saying this type of "offshore appropriation" has never been done by the United States before. As French pundit Arnaud Bertrand noted, this is “straight up unabashed colonial plunder.”
“That's the pattern we see emerge: unable to extract wealth or win wars against an increasingly strong Global South, the US has turned inward to feast on its own ‘allies’ - who can't resist precisely because they depend on their exploiter for military ‘protection’. They're as defenseless against American wealth extraction as any 19th-century colony was against its colonial ‘protector’.”
But the people of Europe are not even aware this is happening. They hear Trump’s remark about being the “President of Europe” and assume it is the ramblings of a delusional old man. But as they laugh, their elected leaders are selling them down the river and giving Trump the impression that he is indeed the President of Europe.
But let’s get real here - in many ways the US president has been the “President of Europe” for the past seven decades. We are, after all, living a protectorate of the United States (the subject of the book I am finishing up now which should be ready for publication in the Autumn). Trump isn’t comparable to Berlusconi or Duterte or any other clownish leader people might laugh at with comfortable distance. Because of the decisions made by our leaders here in Europe over many years, he is (certainly in the military sense but in many other ways as well) just as much Europeans’ president as he is Americans’. The difference is that he is willing to openly exploit that in a way no US president has ever even come close to doing before. Europeans have made their bed, assuming that the US president would always be a benevolent actor. Now they are faced with a man rapidly turning the United States into an authoritarian state and who is ready and willing to abuse for his own gain the massive power the US has accumulated over the past century.
Absolute power corrupts absolutely. The unchecked power of the United States in Europe should have been of grave concern to people here for many years now. But outside of France, almost nobody on this continent wanted to confront this difficult reality. As they laugh at Trump, Europeans are being sold to him by the leaders they elected. By the time they realise what has happened, it will probably be too late. Will this continent ever wake up?