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Published on 2025-07-28 16:00:00 | words: 4305
The key point is within the title, and aligned with what shared yesterday (in Italian) on Facebook:
As shared this morning on Linkedin:
Frankly, the Italian newspapers that I checked today mostly focused on the 15%- even in their "analyst" commentary, and adding picture over picture with tables showing winners and losers.
Also the articles I read this morning commenting on the agreement seem to ignore completely all the wrong noises done by the leader of the European Commission during the negotiation- which an unofficial leak to the press today at lunch time did not remove from memory (or files).
Yes, President Trump tossed the President of the European Commission way some politically useful adjustment, e.g. for automotive.
Until the full material will have been published (if ever- this Commission is not really famous for its forthcoming publicity and transparency, so far), most commentary will focus just on the numbers, and maybe even the State and EU aid to offset that 15%.
Anyway, it was a negotiation playing on expectations and perceptions- and we, Europeans, got, as usual when we assume to have intellectual superiority, got played.
Few sections for few thousand words:
_ why is not a "Peace for our times" moment
_ human, all too human
_ European tactics and USA strategy
Why is not a "Peace for our times" moment
As even the Washington Post today commented:
Yes, this is the "boiled frog approach" in the title: and I am not the only one who, after following President Trump since he was still just in business, decades ago (the "Art of the Deal" and "Apprentice" and real estate times), is considering the current rounds.
In my posts online yesterday and today, I compared the agreement to Chamberlain's "peace for our times" (yes, I am still too Brit, and misquoted as "peace in our times")- and hinted at the difference.
Chamberlain had at least an excuse: biding for time- as shown also in Dunkirk, the Allies were not ready to a war with Germany.
And also later, the Battle of Britain was a close call.
Were we now ready for a commercial war? We had a package, we had a "bazooka" (as the Washington Post article remembers, the EU has a trade deficit in services and IPR), and we are a target market.
A commercial war solves nothing- but you need to have to sustain long-term objectives, not short-term egos (see the next section), and bite the bullet when needed to cauterize the wound, instead of bleeding profusely continuously, until there is not a single drop left.
The final run of the negotiations included plenty of pointers to a weakening of our rules.
This morning on my Linkedin stream opened with post showing a picture of the two leaders, obviously released from Brussels, heralding the agreement as creti
Specifically:
"Allow me to go into some details. We have stabilised on a single 15% tariff rate for the vast majority of EU exports. This rate applies across most sectors, including cars, semiconductors and pharmaceuticals. This 15% is a clear ceiling. No stacking. All-inclusive. So it gives much-needed clarity for our citizens and businesses. This is absolutely crucial.
Today we have also agreed on zero-for-zero tariffs on a number of strategic products. This includes all aircraft and component parts, certain chemicals, certain generics, semiconductor equipment, certain agricultural products, natural resources and critical raw materials. And we will keep working to add more products to this list.
On steel and aluminium, the EU and the US face the common external challenge of global overcapacity. We will work together to ensure fair global competition. And to reduce barriers between us, tariffs will be cut. And a quota system will be put in place.
We will also increase our energy cooperation. Purchases of US energy products will diversify our sources of supply and contribute to Europe's energy security. We will replace Russian gas and oil with significant purchases of US LNG, oil and nuclear fuels.
US AI chips will help power our AI gigafactories and help the US to maintain their technological edge.
Finally, I want to thank President Trump personally for his personal commitment and his leadership to achieve this breakthrough. He is a tough negotiator, but he is also a dealmaker. I want to thank Commissioner Maros Sefcovic and his team for their tireless work and skilful steer; they have done most of the heavy lifting. And I want to thank our Member States for their trust and their commitment. Our unity is our strength, at home and abroad. We will continue to work hard for the benefit of all Europeans. "
Frankly, I liked more the post from the European Parliament that arrived today after the one of the European Commission:
Let's discussing about why this way of conducting negotiations resulted going to play and being played.
In Italian, as I reminded almost two decades ago to an online troll/stalker with Italian friends, we have a saying: "andò per uccellare e venne uccellato".
From the Treccani website: "2. tr., fig., non com. Ingannare, raggirare, gabbare o beffare: spesse volte, mentre altrui si credono u., dopo il fatto sé da altrui essere stati uccellati conoscono (Boccaccio); gli uomini che lusingano le ragazze da marito, e quelle pettegole le quali stanno alla finestra ad uccellarli (Verga); cercare di impadronirsi di qualcosa con l'inganno: non invidiava, non uccellava le ricchezze altrui (Muratori). - Part. pass. uccellato, nel sign. 2 anche come agg.: rimanere uccellato, ingannato, beffato."
Human, all too human
Yes- it is a reference to this book.
But as a title is more interesting than "European Cognitive Dissonance", the title that originally set for this section.
When I attended the London School of Economics in 1995, I remember a classmate from the USA who worked in investment, and, along with another one, praised my knowledge of the USA market and politics at the time.
The one in investment told me that actually, we Europeans assume often intellectual superiority, and treat Americans as simpletons, misunderstanding the public antics for empty minds.
The "rituals" in American business and politics are not as in Europe, but, as he told me back then, in the USA, those who need to know, actually know.
An American colleague in Italy told me a nice joke about cultural differences (always in the 1990s: from 1993 until 1996, lived in Italy and worked at least 50% of my time nearby Parma, but always was in and around Americans, before and after entering the mailing list for "reinventing the government").
He said that, as an aggregate, Americans care about cultural differences, but understand none; instead, the French understand cultural differences, but care about none.
I would not be that extreme in my assessment.
Anyway, met Americans who knew more than they appeared to about Italian "business and politics rituals"- which means a lot, as many Italians do not understand them.
Being able to understand a language and the forma mentis of a country does not necessarily require to be able to write and talk in that language, or to abandon your own ways of dressing, eating, behaving.
And here comes our cultural dissonance.
Net result: we do end up having those playing on our perceptions, and manipulating us when we assume to be manipulating them.
And, from outside Europe, we are observed: I remember how, once, from the USA, while living in Brussels, was asked as an assignment to do a profiling of European leaders.
I did decline, as I hold a European passport (which is the same logic that I applied later to reduce my daily rate for by a part-time project manager in government projects in Rome for a partner).
In leadership within a democracy, there is a difference between private choices and public choices (or statements).
If a leader personally dislikes something, it is puzzling when the leader converts that into an official policy- something that not even most monarchies support anymore.
So, for example, if you are old enough, probably you remember President's Bush (the father) 1990 scene about broccoli.
As far as I remember it, he went to visit a nuclear submarine and, when he was told that broccoli were on the menu, he launched on a tirade about why he disliked broccoli, as he was forced to eat them as a kid, and now that he was president, did not want to eat them, and eventually even had them removed from Air Force One Menu.
It was still a joke that made into the eulogy delivered by his son:
"To us, he was close to perfect. But, not totally perfect. His short game was lousy. (Laughter.) He wasn't exactly Fred Astaire on the dance floor. (Laughter.) The man couldn't stomach vegetables, especially broccoli. (Laughter.) And by the way, he passed these genetic defects along to us. (Laughter.)"
In 1990, a funny article with the title "Bush escalates war against a longtime enemy: broccoli" was published:
"
Bush said Wednesday night that not even his "totalitarian" wife could make him eat broccoli.
Bush expressed delight Wednesday that California growers were shipping 10 tons of the green vegetable to feed the hungry in the nation's capital. "I am not going to rethink my position," a puckish president insisted on his way home from the Oval Office. "
So, he did not forbid broccoli just because he disliked them.
Jump to 2024, and the "Guardian" published an article about a different reaction of the European Commission's President: "Unluckily for the wolf, and perhaps for the entire wolf population of western Europe, Dolly was a cherished family pet belonging to the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, one of the most powerful people in the EU. Last September, a year after Dolly's death, von der Leyen announced plans that to some wolf-defenders looked like revenge: the commission wants to reduce the wolf's legal protection."
As I was asked long ago to do that profiling, are you really expecting that such an activity is not done by our friends and foes alike?
Surprises, when you are dealing with something as complex as a modern state (or a modern multinational company) are not really welcome- and you prepare at least for those that you can prepare for.
A value-added of this preparation is that, if then you have to negotiate, you have a better understanding in what you can leverage on: and if individual choices and interests are on the forefront, it is much easier to achieve your strategic purpose through a sequence of slicing-and-dicing, built on the "boiled frog" approach.
As then Secretary Rumsfeld famously once said "there are known knowns, known unknowns, and unknown unknowns"-
Actually, as relevant to this article, if you have time, I suggest to watch a couple of feature-length interviews from Errol Morris, "The Fog of War" with Robert McNamara, and "The Unknown known" with Donald Rumsfeld.
President Trump is probably a man of excesses, but, frankly, there is so much theatrics that smells of an American favorite that we Europeans misunderstand: wrestling.
His negotiation approach has so much in common with the Italian style: you negotiate whatever deal, and then, when there is a window of opportunity, a further negotiation goes on, as the Washington Post article hinted at.
Even the Washington Post article closed with a tongue-in-cheek on our President of the European Commission praising President's Trump "Art of the Deal".
It is as if appealing to the supposed President Trump's ego, but actually exposing the European Commission President's need of showing off (as many times in "shoot from the hip" initiatives) as the one saving the day, our solitary leader at the helm of an unruly European Union driving in 27 different directions: a herd, not a Union of sovereign Member States.
So, those reductions e.g. for automotive, a politically sensitive industry in Europe, as I wrote in recent articles (e.g. here), where a kind of face-saving element of the deal, to be able to claim a success.
The "shoot from the hip" attitude, coupled with a degree of arrogance was shown also at the recent presentation of the draft budget, where European Parliament members complained that more information was leaked to the press than provided to them.
My expectation? As I wrote in my posts yesterday and today, private and public, I do expect the focus on numbers:
_ both showing who will lose what with the new trade agreement (and Italian newspapers were a "table galore" and "interview fair" today, of "winners" and "losers")
_ and to identify which amounts will be needed to offset the tariffs.
Both choices are, frankly, tactical and not strategic.
European tactics and USA strategy
We Europeans are doing the same mistake that was done often over centuries: not taking the long-term strategic purposes stated within documents outlining our competitors' strategy seriously.
I just received an update of around 12pm today, i.e. when the article was almost completed, and my posts (as well as other commentary from others) had been online for more than half a day.
The update? Claiming that no agreement was made on weakening our EU rules on digital etc:
Frankly, it is again an example of what I wrote above: the European Union since 2019 became too often reactive, not proactive.
And this undermines the credibility of any "resolute" stance: there is no strategic vision, hence each tinkering, announce, Monnet moment to jump ahead avoiding debate is lived from outside as European Union theatrics for internal use, often detached even from realities perceived on the ground by European Union society and companies.
We curiously moved from long-term investment and thinking, e.g. what gave us the original Erasmus program and even the GSM mobile standard, as well as other standards and regulations (see the introductory section of GDPR, outlining the long-term perspective), to piling up of short-term reactions presented as strategic, long-term, visionary, but actually spreading short-term support to incumbent industries, companies, social pressure groups.
Up to the farce of the confirmation: first candidate with a majority, and, once appointed, to get a confirmation of the Commission as a whole, switching majority and, once confirmed, starting to unwind what was agreed with the prior majority, to please the new one.
So, just because in live and public statements the President of the Commission talked and hinted about the potential of changes to our rules, we undermined our negotiating position.
If we set up offsetting economic measures to support affected industries using as a point of reference the current agreement, we should do it strategically, not just on a "balancing now" purpose.
As even in the USA state that agreements with President Trump do evolve.
Anyway, as reported by the Washington Post, there are so many "spending" items within the agreement (that in the USA themselves is considered more a framework than an agreement), that a list of our recent initiatives are starting to get questionable.
And even the statement by the European Commission, by talking about importing AI and chips as "de facto" cornerstone of the next phase of European Union industry, is potentially undermining the credibility of recent initiatives:
"US AI chips will help power our AI gigafactories and help the US to maintain their technological edge."
As I was joking today via chat with friends, reminded me what I was living in London.
PM Tony Blair had to drum up public support for yet another war, after there had been curious cameos, such as a joint press conference when he intervened to amend and expand what the USA President had just said.
So, arranged for a "meet the public" event on TV.
Staged, yes, but British way.
And one of the questions from the public was for the "senator of North Texas", i.e. the Prime Minister.
A joke that went around London for few days.
Albeit UK newspapers also shared the American joke about "The Borrowers", as UK (if memory does not fail me) had set aside around 700mln GBP for war and post-war, and instead newspapers reported 3bln spent just on the war.
That joke about "the borrowers"? Read this article of 2010: "Major General Patrick Marriott, who since last September has been commandant of Sandhurst, led British troops alongside U.S. Marines during the 2003 Iraq campaign. "The Americans called us 'the borrowers,'" he says. "When we ran out of field kitchens, which we did because we were underresourced, the Americans delivered in a split second and it was magnificent. We've been underresourced in our history on numerous occasions. But within the psyche, we cope. Americans fix and we cope."
But there's something to be said for the American way. In 2008, after thinly spread British forces had effectively lost control of Basra to Shi'ite militias, the Iraqi army turned to the U.S. for support to drive out the insurgents. The British, though nominally heading up the coalition forces in the region, played a subsidiary role and, according to some reports, only found out about the operation once it was under way. "
Yes, here we go again: "US AI chips will help power our AI gigafactories and help the US to maintain their technological edge."
What is the point of doing European investment in Europe following our internal market rules (including AI Act GDPR etc), when actually you can potentially bypass them by using a USA-based entity, while even getting incentives and avoiding tariffs?
If you believe that I am exaggerating, actually read e.g. the recent USA AI Action Plan that discussed here- not the technicalities, but the section about intent and strategy.
Ditto for the original document early this year presenting the trade tariffs approach, which directly outlined which rules would expect to bend the USA way: for pages and pages.
And, incidentally, those areas of regulatory change were aligned with those discussed in recent public statements.
So, for now, the actions and statements contradict that flat denial released at lunch time today that we Europeans defended staunchly our way of doing things.
If our gigafactories are to help the US to maintain their technological edge, we are yet again presenting European strategy via the joint paper mill of the European Commission and European Parliament, but then actions such as those of this morning from the European Commission to announce the deal say much, much more.
Well, I keep saving all these documents and their evolutions, as will be an interesting reading for future historians.
Let's see if the "boiled frog" approach will continue, using as a Trojan horse the ego of our European negotiators who assume that they are dealing strategically with a simpleton President Trump.
Instead, he is following transparently his own strategy, which actually keeps opening each document presented by his administration: in this case, as I wrote above, both the initial tariffs document and the more recent AI Action Plan.
Time will say which one is more delusional: our own European delusion of grandeur while playing again the role of the poodle, or the concept of turning the USA from a Sparta (as the founders followed that model) into a new Athens with Europeans playing the role of the Delos league.
To quote another UK Prime Minister: The end of the beginning (if you prefer reading, the full text is here).
"Now, however, we have a new experience. We have victory
Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.
Which, hopefully, will be the attitude in Brussels: the agreement (be it detailed or, as The Washington Post reported, the usual "framework") is just a step in a journey to redesign relationships not just between the USA and the EU, but on a global scale.
Hence, we cannot just assume that the EU is the one that will show the way to everybody else due to its natural intellectual superiority, as often statements in Europe seem to assume.
We have to assume that other countries, friends and foes alike, have their own strategic purposes, yet different ways to express and implement them.
It is us, who keep mistaking tinkering and tactics and "Monnet moments" as viable alternatives to discussing and designing a strategy (and strategic posture) and living by it, with its necessary consequences (choices).
Otherwise, we will keep having strategic announces followed by activities that in business would be called "low hanging fruits" (e.g. support to those affected) built on sprinkler money (a bit for everybody everytime).
Anyway, "low hanging fruits", unless you are a society hunters and gatherers, are just motivational tools within a larger strategy.
And would be quite Monty Python-esque to observe an aggregation of 27 Member States (maybe soon more) with more than 100,000 pages of rules and regulations to try to behave as "hunters and gatherers", akin to the short movie presented with the "Meaning of Life" of the pirate clerks, "The Crimson Permanent Assurance"- who in the end "sailed into the ledgers of history".
If, to win a temporary reprieve from trade tariffs, we sell the future (e.g. the AI chip quote above), it is the proper definition of a Pyrrhic victory.
And we know what happened back then.
If you read previous articles on this website, you remember that I commented on the French-German proposal for evolution of the European Union institutions, not necessarily requiring a revision of the treaties.
While I was living in Brussels, over a decade ago, preconized a potential evolution of "circles of integration".
If we keep bartering for the bare minimum now for fear of making strategic choices, while committing more and more resources to "strategic pipedreams", I think that what has been visible recently, e.g. UK France Germany finding ways to collaborate, could evolve into a different sort of Union- at first economic and military on specific portfolios of activities and initiatives with a long-term agenda, eventually political.
To then further move ahead as a "union of the willing" around a shared strategic purpose, and not just a piling up of tinkering.
Stay tuned!