Trump Owns the EU So Hard the Thirteenth Amendment May Be Repealed – RedState

On Monday, President Trump triumphantly concluded a massive trade agreement with the European Union. An effort to create reciprocal markets for U.S. goods in Europe was supposed to crash the American economy and perhaps kick off a global depression. When the smoke cleared, two things were obvious: Trump had prevailed, and the EU had folded like a cheap suit.

Let’s look at what Trump got from the deal. The general parameters are:

• The EU is removing tariffs on U.S. products while accepting a 15% tariff on most EU goods.
• The EU committed to buying $750 billion in U.S. energy products over the next three years.
• The EU promised $600 billion in direct investment in the U.S.

The verdict from across Europe was a sad face, but a resignation that this deal was as good as it was going to get with Trump.

François Bayrou, France’s prime minister, said on social media that it was a “dark day” for Europe. Another French minister called the agreement “unbalanced.” A left-leaning European Parliamentarian from Belgium posted a dismayed, “What happened, Europe?”

E.U. officials offered a simple response. The situation could have become a disaster, setting off an all-out trade war.

Still, the agreement is worse for Europe than just about anyone in the bloc’s upper echelons would have predicted just a few weeks ago, and even that required a combination of concessions, salesmanship and flattery.

It might nevertheless be one of the better results Europe could have obtained, said Aslak Berg, a research fellow at the Centre for European Reform in London.

“A lot of the initial reaction is that this a political defeat, this is a humiliation for the European Union,” Mr. Berg said. He added: “Is it what the E.U. wanted? No. Is it ideal? No. But if this agreement sticks — big if — it will provide a certain degree of predictability.”

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Like anything else, the devil is in the details, and a good deal is between a willing buyer and a willing seller.

Energy: the Russians are effectively shut out of the European market, but jobs will be created in Europe in terminal operations, transportation, and refining.

Automobiles: The U.S. will reduce tariffs from 25% to 15%, providing some relief to struggling European carmakers. Discussions are underway to harmonize U.S. and EU standards for autonomous vehicles, which, in my view, will primarily benefit the U.S.

Aircraft: All tariffs on aircraft and parts are lifted, helping both Boeing and Airbus.

Pharmaceuticals: The 15% rate is expected to clobber the EU “generic drug” industry, which will have trouble competing on price. Don’t be surprised to see them bringing operations to the U.S. where they can operate tariff-free in both the U.S. and the EU.

Technology: EU chip-making equipment has a zero percent tariff. The EU will import high-end U.S. chips with no tariff. This will go a long way toward making the EU permanently dependent on U.S. products.

Digital Regulation: The deal did not cover the EU’s ferocious love of internet regulation. That battle is still brewing.

Defense: Although there was no formal agreement on weapons purchases, as another Trump initiative to increase NATO spending is bearing fruit, the U.S. remains a logical marketplace for most NATO members.

Food: Negotiations are still underway, with the U.S. pushing for zero tariffs both ways. The EU is more inclined to allow U.S. foods that do not compete with EU growers to enter without tariffs. It is too soon to say how this falls out.

Steel: A 50% tariff applies to EU steel imports over a to-be-negotiated baseline quota. It is expected that the EU will focus on specialty steels and stay under the quota. China, though, is going to get hammered.

The real story here is less economics than power politics and the dangers of believing your own press releases. The Financial Times started the “TACO” trend. TACO stands for “Trump Always Chickens Out.” 

Thanks to Donald Trump and my FT colleague, Robert Armstrong, many of the world’s investors are now talking about the “Taco trade”.

It was Robert who coined the phrase “Trump always chickens out” (Taco). The pattern is that the US president will promise to impose massive tariffs on a chosen target. But he will then later cut or delay the tariffs, often in response to an adverse reaction from the markets.

So far this has happened with Canada and Mexico, then with the “reciprocal tariffs” imposed on most of humanity (and some penguins), then with the 145 per cent rate on China. A threat to raise tariffs on the EU to 50 per cent lasted all of a weekend. Hence — Taco.

The term even inspired Chuck Schumer to use it to attempt to make a point.

With that mindset, the EU team walked into a negotiation they had already won in their minds and got their clocks cleaned. In the aftermath of the deal, the Financial Times, instead of crowing about the “TACO trade,” ruefully noted, “While EU technocrats were boxing under Queensberry rules, Trump was in a New York street fight.”

I’m generally a staunch defender of the economics profession but the fact that an 80 year old reality show star and his ragtag crew of like 5 alabama university undergrads are running circles around 10 thousand PhDs for a year now does raise some questions one cannot ignore pic.twitter.com/jHq0qOJJDL

— yung macro 年轻的宏观 (@apralky) July 28, 2025

A lot of the European establishment sees this for exactly what it is. A total capitulation by the EU to the U.S. because the EU is afraid it can’t survive without U.S. military backing.

GERMAN ECONOMY MINISTER: EU IS CURRENTLY NEGOTIATING FROM A POSITION OF WEAKNESS, WE MUST CHANGE THIS

— *Walter Bloomberg (@DeItaone) July 29, 2025

This is absolutely extraordinary and beyond parody: pic.twitter.com/EURtXsP44f

A reporter rightly asks Von Der Leyen “What are the US concessions? What is the US giving up in the deal”

VDL’s reply is that there was none because “the starting point was an imbalance, a surplus on…

— Arnaud Bertrand (@RnaudBertrand) July 28, 2025

A reporter rightly asks Von Der Leyen “What are the US concessions? What is the US giving up in the deal” 

VDL’s reply is that there was none because “the starting point was an imbalance, a surplus on our side, and a deficit on the US side [so] we wanted to rebalance the trade relation.” 

This is who we have negotiating on the EU’s behalf: someone so thoroughly captured she’s repeating almost word for word Trump’s insane rhetoric that trade deficits are somehow proof America is a victim that deserves compensation.

 Far from Trump diminishing U.S. power, this deal demonstrates that he is capable of wielding absolute power to achieve his goals in a manner that perhaps no other president since Theodore Roosevelt has attempted.

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