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I assume you mean heavy tariffs against china in a futile bid to turn back the time and reindustrialize. I don't understand how diminishing trade between US and allies is supposed to convince them to end their trade with china. When one supermarket's closed, you go to the next one.
If you don't understand, it would probably help to work on the metaphor.
A tariff barrier is not a closing of a supermarket, not least because tariff barriers already exist between American allies. That is what the EU common market is- a trade barrier between the European group of allies and their other allies, including the Americans, the Brits, and so on.
Even more relevantly, a threat of tariff barriers is not a closing of a supermarket either, particularly when everyone (should) understand that the threat is conditional on [insert trade / political concession here]. The conditionality is critical because it can be used to create and either-or dilemma of which supermarket the consumer goes to, as opposed to the consumer has no choice.
The rise of deglobalization and the multipolar world order is not a close off of markets entirely, but a process of choosing / forcing choices of which markets to associate with. Globalization may have been a 'choose any supermarket you want' dynamic, but deglobalization is a mutually exclusive membership program, where association with one supermarket will lead to increasing limits with the other.
The issue for some countries, of course, is that the two supermarkets are not anywhere near to competitive in attractiveness. The European Family, for example, is not going to fine any meaningful offers from ChinaMart on in the 'expeditionary armies to fight in your defense' market, particularly when ChinaMart is close business partners with 'WeSwearWeWon'tBlackmailYou' Russian Discount Gas, which is currently in a special hostile takeover operation against the cousin down the street.
It’s a supermarket simultaneously raising its prices while rolling out an anti-competitive new policy where you can’t buy there if you also buy from the competitor. It assumes that the supermarket has infinite leverage, that it is so unilaterally indispensable that the customer has no choice. This kind of blackmail works until it doesn’t, like russia banking on europe’s gas dependency.
Psychologically, people prefer a less competitive supermarket to being coerced in that way. I think you overestimate your leverage, and how “rational” your customers are. I’m way more pro-american than average, and even I think US allies should tell trump to take a walk.
Who knows how "rational" Europe is in this scenario but the US has a lot of leverage. In a world where
Europe is now
The only way for Europe to collectively mitigate these problems is to build a large military, quickly, or to develop European autarchy, relieving the need to trade with China (or possibly both!) But Europe hasn't demonstrated the ability to do that. Building a conventional navy is extremely expensive and the requisite nuclear capability is fraught (I can absolutely see Russia attacking Poland if they try to develop nuclear weapons). And this is assuming Europe can pull this off in perfect harmony instead of getting locked in another European arms race or getting dominated by the only European power with nuclear weapons (France – I doubt England splits from the US and I'm counting Russia as its own thing.)
I dunno the exact numbers involved so who knows how the math plays out. But to me it seems like the supermarket has a lot of leverage.
The US military umbrella, while nice, is unnecessary against russia’s second rate military (insert joke about joining the ukrainian military umbrella instead).
If the US and China go at it, it would be far better for us to sit on the sidelines than to be stuck in the US supermarket. The manager’s already raising prices in peacetime, we’d better get out before he turns desperate and asks us to pay in blood.
What is the threat of ‘the US becoming hostile’? Is the US going to double the tariffs to punish us from walking away because of the tariffs? Or is the threat war, blockade, invasion? If so , then the normal human pride reaction would be to militarize, get more nukes, and cooperate with US enemies, not accept US blackmail.
But neither I nor the rest of europe appears to believe that is a real threat – what you interpret as an inability to build a large army, I view as unwillingness because of a perceived lack of need: see minimal percent of GDP invested in the military, lack of nukes despite know-how.
Tacitus famously said that the Secret of the Empire was that an emperor did not have to be made at Rome . In other words, that the senate’s power was a sham and the ‘first senator among equals’ was in reality a military dictator.
Is the US secretly a military dictator, even though we peripherals pretend it’s a business partner, or worse, a friend? To me the strongest argument against is that allied US countries who could retaliate militarily after a US invasion (France, UK) have no meaningfully different politics and geopolitics compared to countries who couldn’t (Germany, Spain, Italy, Japan, etc). If anything, western nuclear powers seem even more eager to support the US, which is the opposite of what you would expect from 'hard' power relations.
Why is the manager being desperate if he no longer subsidizes your purchases?
Again, bad market metaphors are bad metaphors, but the US economic relationship with Europe- the 'supermarket'- is not a net moneymaker for the US. The trade balance between the US and EU is, and has for decades been, in Europe's favor, in part because of trade barriers such as the European common market wall.
If you want to make a marketplace metaphor, this is the market selling to the consumers at a loss. There can be benefits for the US side of the of the trade (advantage to the specific industries benefiting more), there can be non-monetary gains from providing subdisized services, but if you want to model the relationship as a commercial transaction (shopper and supermarket), the supermarket stops losing money the sooner it gets out of the business of subsidizing goods.
This is a mercantilist perspectives that get involved in arguments of why mercantilism isn't a good strategy for countries even if it makes sense for businesses, and service-vs-good economy differences, but the business case for the US-European relationship is not 'the Europeans bring in more commercial profits than costs.'
You are not in conflict with Donald Trump when you say you do not believe that there is no real threat, you are in agreement. What you consider blackmail is just the natural extension of that consensus.
The American-European economic relationship for the better part of the last century has been an extension of the Cold War American-European strategic alliance. But instead of the classic hegemon relationship of military protection in exchange for preferential market access for the hegemon (hegemon provides client protection in exchange for money), the Cold War alliance was the inverse- the Americans gave the Europeans preferential market access in exchange for strategic deference. This started with the Marshal Plan, continued with things like the trilateral agreements for getting the Japanese and Koreans during their recognistruction phases, and continued in various forms elsewhere.
If the Europeans are uninterested, unable, and/or otherwise unwilling to provide strategic deference- particularly due to a lack of mutual need- there is no strategic basis for continuing to pay for the strategic relationship.
The result of this what you call 'blackmail'- threatening to no longer pay (via ending preferential trade access that were the forms of payment) for services no longer rendered (strategic deference and military partnership).
OK, so the main disagreement is that I think trade balance is irrelevant . Trade isn’t a zero sum game where the US sells ‘at loss’ because they have a trade deficit. It’s kind of the opposite really, given that trade surplus countries are accused of ‘dumping’ manufactured goods like electric cars or planes they supposedly produce at a loss.
The excellent american economic health has gone hand in hand with trade deficits, to the point that many have suspected that americans get free stuff while the rest of the world gets worthless dollars. I’m not saying it’s causal, just that trump’s domestic story of exploited americans might not play as well elsewhere, when he’s negotiating supermarket prices. Non-americans have their own exploitation story, and at least they're, you know, poorer.
Because I see trade as mutually beneficial, you can understand why trump’s threats look more like ‘blackmail’ to me , and I understand why to you or trump it’s just ‘putting pressure’.
And yet, trade balance is incredibly relevant to a supermarket metaphor. The supermarket is in the business iof maintaining a positive trade balance with its customers, because if the supermarket does not then then supermarket goes out of business. This is, in fact, the basis of the threat to go to another (China) supermarket- it is a threat to reduce the trade income with MuricaMart, on the assumption that MuricaMart makes a profit off of trading with you.
If you think a supermarket's profitability is irrelevant to the interest of a supermarket staying in business, you are not talking about a supermarket.
Because the trade balance was itself a trade- a systemic trade bias in European favor (thanks to higher tariffs against American goods than for European goods) in exchange for European military cooperation against the American geopolitical rival. That prioritization of shared security over money was the positive sum dynamic that motivated the initial alliance beyond the monetary cost.
When the Europeans are not interested (as you are not) or able (as the continent is not) in upholding that positive-sum game, then the negative-sum game of trade flows absent other interests reasserts itself.
Good news! Donald Trump will graciously allow the Europeans to be free of that accusation by magnanimously leveling trade barriers and trade deficits that the Europeans currently have over the United States. He will even support the Europeans in raising their own anti-dumping tariffs on any global overproducers, of which the most notable is China.
If you are poor, what do you think you have to offer for preferential trade access to the American market?
Remember that the approval of European public is not required for the end of the structural basis of the European-American alliance via the end of American economic subsidies to the poorer European public from the American end. (Arguably, European public opinion has already approved of this from the European end, by continuing to vote for decades of demilitarization and increasing strategic autonomy before there was an end to advantageous trade terms.)
The American public, at least, has in the last election indicated it is not convinced that major trade deficits are the cause of American economic health, as opposed to unnecessary costs that lowered them more than they could have otherwise risen. They may be wrong, but being wrong does not change ambivalence for ending subsidies to other continents, despite the near-term economic disruption that could bring.
The question for the European public, as a result, is what does it want to offer- if does and if it can- to keep some manner of American subsidies coming, even if at a reduced rate.
Apparently not, since you misunderstand my position (or seem to believe it is Trump's). Instead, let me try to place your position and the Trumpian position in an inconvenient context.
You see trade as mutually beneficial, but you do not want to deliver what was traded in the original Euro-American alliance- Europe's military-strategic deference against the American geopolitical rival.
The Trumpian perspective is that this is fine! This is your sovereign choice. He just also does not see a point in continuing to provide concessions that were initially provided for such a military-strategic deference deal. He will not blame you for it if you think it's a bad deal. He doesn't think it's a good deal either. That's why he's willing to reduce it.
The inconvenient context is that this is only blackmail if there is an expectation that European market access preferences are an entitlement that should be provided regardless of degree European strategic alignment.
If there is no European entitlement to preferential market access, then what we are observing is not blackmail, but the mutually consenting unraveling of a former trade deal: the Europeans no longer want to offer strategic deference, and the Americans no longer want to subsidize the Europeans.
Buying an item in the supermarket (or trading beans for bacon with my neighbour) is a mutually beneficial transaction. I don’t owe walmart military service afterwards.
Was this military-support-for-one-sided-tariffs agreement commented on by anyone at the time (preferably european)? These needlessly complicated ‘subventions’ breed confusions. Next time we’ll take it in cash, not in trade.
You’ve had a way bigger deficit against china than us for a long time. What did they agree to do for you in order to get this preferential treatment? We have a big deficit against saudi arabia – is that a subsidy too?
The average tariff between US-EU is 3%. I don’t mind equalizing if you find an ‘unfair’ percent here and there, but it’s not going to meaningfully change the balance of trade, because it depends on other characteristics of the economy. So Trump is still going to claim exploitation and raise tariffs 25 % and so the people, agreeing to disagree, will mutually consent to the unraveling of mutually beneficial trade.
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