| As the consternation and confusion over Trump’s tariffs continues, Europe is struggling to put up a unified front. Economics reporter Alessandra Migliaccio, who attended the monthly meeting of EU finance ministers this weekend, explains. Plus, a test drive in the all-electric Cadillac Escalade. If this email was forwarded to you, click here to sign up. At the monthly conclave of European Union finance ministers in Warsaw over the weekend, the whole unity thing started to wear a bit thin. As ministers and policymakers mingled, strategized and occasionally paused for plates of roast duck, pickles and smoked ham, their public proclamations all stressed the importance of speaking with a single voice when dealing with Donald Trump’s Washington. “To get a balanced agreement, the unity of Europeans as shown by today’s meetings is absolutely essential,” French Finance Minister Eric Lombard told reporters on Friday. The message? No matter how much the mercurial US president might try to cut a separate deal with you, don’t go there. The European Commission will take care of it, thank you. It’s the commission’s job—and it’s the law, as the bloc’s executive arm is responsible for external trade relations. “We need a truly European answer,” said Polish Finance Minister Andrzej Domanski, the event’s host, since Poland holds the bloc’s rotating presidency. But in the conference rooms and corridors, the mood was more fractious, with contrasting proposals from officials who were feeling worried and whiplashed by Trump’s negotiating tactics, according to people who asked not to be named discussing private conversations. European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde eventually chided the ministers for speaking out too much and told them to let Brussels take the lead, the people say.  Unity was the theme in public proclamations, but in the conference rooms and corridors the mood was more fractious. Photographer: SOPA Images/Getty Images The differences occasionally even crept into public view at the event’s austere brick venue, the Polish Army Museum, whose medieval armor and World War II tanks served as a stark reminder of the war in nearby Ukraine—and Poland’s proximity to the front lines. Although European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has mooted the notion of increased levies on US tech giants if talks with the White House fail, German Finance Minister Jörg Kukies argued against that because Europe lacks robust home-grown offerings. “We have to be cautious with digital taxes,” he said in Warsaw. “In many areas of digital services, if you look at data centers and the cloud, there simply aren’t sufficient alternatives.” The EU, the US’s largest trading partner, has been rocked by Trump’s on-again, off-again stance on tariffs and trade. Last Wednesday, the bloc was staring down a 20% levy on all of its goods. Then that afternoon, Trump changed his mind and said Europe (and dozens of other trading partners) would at least temporarily see a more modest—but still disruptive—10% rate on most goods, with higher levies on cars, steel and aluminum. Since Trump came to office, his team members have made their disdain for America’s European allies abundantly clear. The president has said the EU was formed to “screw” the US, and Vice President JD Vance dissed Europeans in the Signal chat that was inadvertently shared with a journalist. EU policymakers have reason to be concerned about maintaining a united front. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni—who’s been cozying up to the US president and Elon Musk lately—is set for a solo visit to Washington this week, where she’s expected to negotiate tariff relief directly with Trump. While the commission insists the trip has been coordinated with Brussels, French Industry Minister Marc Ferracci warned about the dangers of undermining unity. “Europe is strong if it’s united,” Ferracci told FranceInfo radio last week. “If we start having bilateral talks, the dynamic that is present at the moment will end up breaking.” Paschal Donohoe, Ireland’s finance minister and president of the Eurogroup, a smaller circle of finance chiefs from countries that use the euro, says it’s important for the EU to respond to the US in a proportionate way but that it must also prepare a Plan B to make Europe less reliant on the US. “For now our focus is on negotiation, on avoiding the worst,” Donohoe told Bloomberg TV. “Can we de-escalate this, find a new outcome, a better place than we are today? But as we are doing that, we have to assess the trading relationships we have elsewhere.” |
