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The View From Europe

2025/2/6
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Gina Smialek: 作为纽约时报布鲁塞尔分社的负责人,我观察到欧洲领导人主要采取三管齐下的策略来应对特朗普的第二任期。首先是安抚,试图缓和与美国之间的紧张关系。其次是教育,不断提醒特朗普政府欧盟与美国关系的重要性。最后是准备,为可能发生的各种情况做好准备,无论是吞并格陵兰的企图还是大规模的贸易战。我认为他们正在认真思考这对世界以及他们自身地位的意义。

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European leaders are employing a three-pronged approach: appeasement, education, and preparation. They are trying to appease the Trump administration, educate them on the importance of the EU-U.S. relationship, and prepare for potential challenges like a trade war or annexation of Greenland.
  • Three-pronged approach: appeasement, education, preparation
  • Focus on EU-U.S. relationship
  • Preparation for potential challenges

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I was on a flight from Brussels to Washington yesterday, actually. And of course, because I'm a good journalist, I eavesdrop on flights. And it was very interesting, like how much I heard people talking about the USAID thing everywhere I went on this flight. Like it was just like it was the talk of the entire airplane. Even the flight attendants, they were like, you know, pouring wine. Have you heard? Can you imagine? Yeah.

Hello and welcome to the FiveThirtyEight Politics Podcast. I'm Galen Druk. In the first three weeks of Trump's second term, some see the clearest crackup of the post-war world order to date. For proponents, that order was marked by a Pax Americana, during which America vastly expanded its influence and promoted values that led to peace and prosperity for many.

For critics, America became a sucker, sitting idly by while domestic manufacturing atrophied, and allies became dependent on American taxpayers for security and development.

Whichever way you look at it, the post-war era saw the growth of democracy and free trade, an end to territorial expansionism, and a close partnership between the United States and the West. So today, we're going to take a look at the start of Trump's second term through the eyes of some of America's closest allies, Europe.

In recent weeks, Trump has floated annexing Greenland, threatened to launch a trade war with the European Union, and re-upped criticisms of NATO members. A survey from the European Council on Foreign Relations found that the European public is more pessimistic about Trump than nearly anywhere else in the world.

Here with me to discuss it all is Gina Smiley. She's a former economics reporter for The New York Times and now the paper's Brussels bureau chief. Welcome back to the podcast, Gina. Thank you for having me. And congratulations on the promotion. I'm glad that it sets you up in a perfect position to talk about everything that is going on from a European perspective. And that's exactly where I want to start.

How have European leaders reacted to the beginning of Trump's second term now that we are, what, 17, 18 days in? I can't believe it's only 18 days. It feels like it feels like we've been we've been doing this for longer. They have reacted really in what I think I'm starting to think of as sort of this three pronged approach.

Prong one is they are very much striking sort of an appeasing stance. I think appeasement is the first thing they're trying to do here. The second thing they're trying to do is, I think, educate. They are basically trying to constantly remind the Trump administration how important the EU-U.S. relationship is. And the third thing they're trying to do is really prepare for the next step.

for what's coming, whether that is the attempted annexation of Greenland or a massive tariff war or something else. I think they're spending a lot of time thinking about what this means for the world and for their relative place in it.

Obviously, the EU is comprised of many different countries, which have governments of all different political leanings in this moment, right wing, centrist, left wing. Some of those governments may change this year as well, because there are some high profile elections, particularly, for example, in Germany this month.

So is there a range of reactions to Trump across Europe or has the response been pretty unified so far? Oh, huge, huge range. Enormous. As you allude to, 27 member countries within the European Union. And those range from France, where Emmanuel Macron has been quite outspoken about some of the ways in which he thinks Europe needs to sort of stand up for itself, to France,

Hungary, where Viktor Orban obviously has been quite friendly towards the Trump administration. And then you've got in the middle of that, you know, people like Giorgio Maloney in Italy, who are sort of establishing themselves as interlocutors with the Trump administration. It's really just a massive range of both reactions to him and I think responses in how to work with him. And so I think we're really seeing

the sort of full range of that. And then at the EU level, you know, there is an executive and sort of governance structure there. And I think they are really trying to figure out how they fit into all of that. You know, is the Trump administration going to be willing to work with them? Is it going to try and sort of

parcel off Europe into individual countries. And they're really trying to send this message that, you know, Europe is stronger as a whole. We're a bigger economic force if we work together and we will fare better in this era if we are united. Going back to the way that I framed this conversation, do leaders in Europe see this as, you know, the beginning of Trump's second term as an end to the post-war order? Is it in those kinds of existential terms?

There's a range of views. Like some people see this as sort of like the sky is falling and this is the end of the world. And then some people, I think, see it as something much more iterative than that or, you know, just a continuation of Trump 1.0. So I think there's a real range of opinions. But we've certainly heard people say things like we're seeing a real turning away from globalization. We're seeing a turn away from global integration. We're in a new age of great power conflict. That's a phrase that's getting thrown around a lot.

And I think that you'll frequently hear Ursula von der Leyen, who's the president of the European Commission, which is the EU's executive branch, saying things like, you know, this is an era of heightened geopolitical competition. And so I think there is this real sense that something fundamental has started to fracture.

I mentioned the survey at the top from the European Council on Foreign Relations, and by somewhere between a 10 and 40 point margin, depending on the country, Europeans see Trump's election as bad for them and bad for the world. And compared to the rest of the world, that's significantly more pessimistic. Why do you think in this new era that they describe, Europe is so down on Trump?

I think Trump 2.0 has some really, really big risks for Europe and bigger, I think, maybe than Trump 1.0 did. Something fundamental has changed in the interim, which is there is a land war in Europe right now. You know, the war in Ukraine, I think, is hyper present there. And I think the fact that Trump has talked about

about ending that quickly, that he has sort of wavered on how much support he thinks the U.S. should be providing to that war and that conflict. I think that that is definitely very front of mind, as is this idea that Trump

repeatedly reiterates, which is that, you know, Europe needs to go it alone more and fund more of its own defense spending. Funding defense spending is obviously something that there's actually quite a big growing consensus around in Europe. But if you fund defense spending at the levels that President Trump is suggesting, you have to stop funding something else. You know, it's got to come, that money's got to come from somewhere. Um,

So I think that's a major concern. And then I think the second thing that's really changed is it does seem like the tariffs that are coming for Europe could be more intense than the first round. We don't know what they look like yet. We've gotten only the roughest contours from the president. But he talks repeatedly about slapping tariffs on Europe.

in a way that would make Europe more inclined to buy American cars, American farm products, and American fuel. And I think that there's this real concern that at a moment when Europe's economy is already really struggling, that could be a really sort of extremely painful blow. I want to talk about each of those prongs, sort of security and the economy and the like.

But set the table for us. Where does Europe stand politically and economically in this moment? Economically, I will take that one first because it's a little bit easier. Economically, this is not a good moment for the EU or for Europe as a whole. The

economy there has been growing extremely slowly. Productivity is really in the doldrums. If you look at Germany, they are just in this very prolonged recession. They're really struggling to get their economy into speed. And part of that is because of the war in Ukraine. Europe as a whole has been trying to wean itself off of Russian gas, which has caused energy prices to really increase. And high energy prices have all kinds of knock-on effects for the rest of society. It makes it more expensive to

produce. It makes it more expensive to buy stuff, you know, and so we're feeling the reverberations of that throughout the society. But I think even more than that, you're also just seeing that Europe really hasn't had a lot of success at being innovative and setting up big companies in recent years. You know, the U.S. has Facebook and Apple and Google and all of these really big, shiny new AI startups. And Europe is really lagging behind on things like that. They do have France in particular has some

new players on the AI scene, but in general, I think there's this feeling that they're really falling behind economically. And so I think that is a really important context for understanding the political scene, because I would say the political scene is more complicated, but very much in a moment of flux.

We've seen the far right be ascendant in a lot of European countries. We have seen them sort of pick up seats in a lot of legislatures at the sort of European Union level as well. And then I think we've increasingly seen them coming to power in national governments. Belgium's government just formed and they are under an increasingly right-leaning prime minister. And then I think obviously we've got the German elections coming up and could see a significant shift.

shift in power there. And so I think there's a lot happening politically in Europe at the moment, but I think it's overall characterized by this real sort of shift away from what had been the sort of more centrist norm. It seems as though Trump has preserved some of his harshest actions for our closest allies.

I'm curious how Europe views that or why you think that might be and whether a pivot to the right in Europe would fend off some of that. Or if Donald Trump

views Europe as sort of, in his eyes, taking advantage of the United States, regardless of who might be leading the individual countries? Yeah. So it's an interesting question. I was actually at Davos a few weeks ago in Switzerland, and a lot of the European officials were there, which is why I was there, being the not fancy version of a Davos attendee. But

And so it was interesting as I was talking to people around the inauguration, because the inauguration happened during this Davos meeting that happens every year. And it was interesting. I was talking to a lot of people during the inauguration and they were telling me, you know, like, we're not sure how real these tariffs are. It feels like it might be posturing. Like, why would you do that? You know, we're the biggest trade partner of the United States if you look at the EU as a whole. And so I feel like there was I was getting a lot of

that seemed to me to be expressing that while they were wary about these trade things, they weren't really sure how seriously to take them. And then I think there was just a massive vibe shift with the executive orders putting...

major tariffs on Canada and Mexico. And obviously we saw that those tariffs were delayed at the last minute. They didn't go into effect. But I think the fact that it got so extremely close to a world in which we had 25% tariffs on both of the US's two biggest neighbors,

I think really, really sort of shifted how people were thinking about this. After that, I think you started to see people take this seriously in a way that, I mean, not to imply that they weren't taking it all seriously before, that that would be wrong. But I think that it just really underscored that this is coming, that this could be a very real thing, that like you are making a mistake if you underestimate how serious this potential risk is.

And so I think that that has been a really interesting change in tone. And I think that, you know, the European Union at the European Commission level has been preparing for potential tariffs for a long time. But I think you're really seeing rhetoric around what sort of retaliation would look like ramp up among the national heads of state and among national ministers. And I think that this conversation is really sort of advancing just even in the last couple of days.

And the fact that, say, Georgia Maloney may have a similar worldview to Trump wouldn't change whether Italy is impacted by tariffs the same way that Germany might be.

So I think there is a real concern, actually, that there is going to be some sort of distinction made at the U.S. level between these countries, that they're going to make an effort to sort of like parcel them off and carve them apart from each other. But at the end of the day, the way that trade policy works in Europe is it's primarily handled by the EU. You know, it is an economic union and the EU handles major tariff policies. And I think the messaging we're hearing so far is that they are trying

hoping to maintain a sense of unity and try not to strike little side deals as individual nations. We will see if that lasts. I think this is one of the big questions that's sort of like hanging over Europe at the moment is, can you maintain union in the face of this? Trump frequently brings up the trade deficit with Europe when talking about these tariffs, which currently sits at about $160 billion. Is Trump right that

there are unfair trade practices between Europe and the United States that leads to that deficit? So there are, you know, as with all things, I think that's very difficult to make a judgment call as a non-opinionated journalist that I am on whether he's right or not. I think we know a couple of things about this. One, it is true that Europe exports a lot more goods to the United States than it imports from the United States. There is a trade deficit.

It is also true that that is not necessarily the same story on services. And European officials will emphasize to you that they don't think that the national accounts particularly well measure how much Europe matters to America's service industries. And the one they'll often bring up is tech and Google in particular. You know, Europeans heavily use Google. Are all these statistics correctly understood?

understanding how much that benefits the company and how much additional business comes into U.S. firms because of that. And so I think that this is one of their big points that they will make. I think other big points include things like, you know, Trump will often say things about cars in particular, the fact that Europe is not importing enough American cars, the fact that, you know, European car exports to the U.S. outstrip European imports of American vehicles.

But I think that that's a much more complicated story than you think it is at first glance. Like at first glance, yeah, that's basically right. But at second glance, you realize that actually a lot of these European companies produce some of their cars in the U.S. physically. And a lot of these supply chains are more complicated than you might initially expect. And it's also the case that some of the cars that

President Trump specifically refers to just don't work in Europe for various reasons. Like, you know, you don't see a lot of F-150s in Munich. Like F-150s also wouldn't work on the streets in Munich. They're too wide. And so there are some just like basic logistical issues. And so I think that as with all things, it's a much more complicated story once you start scratching under the surface. What would the effect of an across the board

say, 10% or 25% tariff on European goods due and a potentially equal retaliation from Europe? So it would probably do a couple of things. It would clearly slow trade between the two countries.

economies. I think that's the most obvious thing. It would in all likelihood push up inflation to the extent that things were still being imported. Presumably, we would see some of these companies passing along the additional costs to their customers. Things would potentially get less efficient. So companies might just end up producing in a different place, but that would potentially be more expensive. And so I think that the end result would likely be inflation on both sides of the Atlantic.

And I think that there could be really long running implications that I think we're probably not fully wrapping our heads around yet. You know, I think when you talk to sort of political scientists about this, they'll tell you like this could be

not just what's happening with Europe, but what's happening around the world with this sort of trade deintegration could be really meaningful in the sense of trade and increased trade flows have been a very stabilizing force in the world economy and in geopolitics. And disentanglement could really have some pretty far-reaching consequences. One option for countries that are miffed by Trump, whether it's tariffs or

you know, the situation that we had with Colombia a week or so ago is a turn to China. And that's an obvious path for, say, South American countries that may not feel all that much love for the United States to begin with and may also not feel threatened by China in the way that the United States does. But is that an option for Europe as Europe prepares for potential tariffs, demands on security, perhaps decreased funding for Ukraine?

Is turning to China an option? You know, China is complicated because I think that China is one of these great powers that everyone sees in conflict. And so I think that for various strategic reasons and for values reasons, I think Europe is actually quite nervous about its integration with China, even as it already exists. I think

That nervousness varies from country to country. I think you get a really different vibe about China and France than you're getting from Germany, which has a very important export market in China. This is one of those cases where the read you're going to get on this is going to vary by where in Europe you are.

But I also think it is the case, and I think it's a really interesting development, that even if Europe isn't turning to China, it is turning other places. So one thing that we have really clearly seen that has been a definite trend is that as geopolitical tensions ramp up and as Europe looks to the U.S. and sees a less reliable trading partner, it's trying to look around and see where more reliable trading partners might be. They've recently deepened trade agreements with Mexico and Malaysia.

And there is a real shift toward paying attention to India. Von der Leyen, the European Commission head, is increasingly doing that. And so I think that there really could be a pretty marked move toward making new friends and deepening other alliances and sort of basically treating the world like it's a big place. And, you know, U.S., China and Europe aren't the only powers in it.

When it comes to security, Trump has criticized NATO countries for not hitting the benchmarks for defense spending as outlined according to NATO and even urging countries to invest more than is outlined according to NATO.

And it is true that European countries have not met their benchmarks for decades and that in some ways, in many ways, Europe relies on the United States for its defense. European leaders now say as much and say that that's a problem. I think Macron, as maybe you mentioned earlier, has been the most outspoken on this and that Europe should be able to provide for its own defense.

How is that playing out? Is the European public in accordance with Macron's worldview? Are they down to spend more money on missiles and tanks and planes and boats?

So I think we've seen very clearly that there is a new sense that it's important to ramp up defense spending. And it is important to point out that Europe has missed those NATO targets for a long time, but is ramping up. Defense spending has markedly increased and it's approaching the 2% sort of GDP that Europe

NATO had been guiding, although NATO is about to increase that guidance. What is also true is that President Trump has suggested that European nations should be spending closer to 5% of their GDP on defense, which is a very high number. Basically, no one hits that. Poland is close.

And the United States is 3.5%, right? Yeah, we're not there. And so 5% is a very big number. I think you would see a lot less support for getting spending up to those kinds of levels. Because if you got spending up to those kinds of levels, again, you have to shave spending on something else, on something else major to hit it. You've got to spend less money.

And so I think that there is certainly appetite for more security spending, more defense spending, more sort of creative thinking around how Europe can be more self-reliant on defense.

I think there's also this real sense that there's almost no chance Europe can just go it alone immediately. Like the idea that the decoupling could be so quick, I think is really under a lot of stress. Yeah. I mean, after a recent defense summit or retreat, EU leaders said, quote, the United States is our friend, our ally and our partner. This is a relationship that has deep roots and will endure in time. You know, the sense that

This will be a rough patch, but the long term, the relationship won't change. Is that realistic? So Mark Ruta, who is the head of NATO, has been going around basically saying, you know, what's unrealistic, completely decoupling from the U.S. Like what's unrealistic is the idea that we could get to the point where we can do our own missile defense systems and our own, you know, our own various technologies and and do this entirely on our own.

And so I think there's been this real posture of like, it's not probably all that realistic to very quickly, completely and totally decouple from American defense industries and American defense spending. And so the realistic option is just trying to figure out some way to basically keep America on sides and cooperative while also giving it like,

real signs that Europe is doing the things that it wants, including spending more on defense spending, including, you know, spending that in an efficient way. Like, I think there's this real idea that Europe needs to sort of make clear steps in the direction that President Trump has suggested and make it clear that part of the reason they're doing that is because President Trump has suggested it and basically hope that the U.S. remains an active participant at the table. In the background of all of this is a more maybe

esoteric conversation about norms, democratic norms, and the values that defined the post-World War II era. And I want to talk about those, but first let's take a little break.

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As we have this conversation, the latest statement from Trump that's ruffling feathers abroad has to do with Gaza. Trump said that he wants the U.S. to take over the area and for Palestinians to permanently resettle elsewhere. He also said that the U.S. would redevelop Gaza, turning it into a, quote, Riviera of the Middle East.

Experts say forcing Gaza's population to leave would be a clear violation of international law. Foreign leaders have quickly pointed that out in criticizing Trump's comments. This also gets at a broader theme of Trump 2.0, which is territorial expansionism. And as he said in his own inaugural address, manifest destiny.

What are you hearing in Europe as this latest controversy plays out? Yeah, so I think we've seen a real condemnation from the national level leaders of what President Trump recently said. I think people were saying things like unacceptable. I think you saw the Germans and the French come out with pretty strong statements saying that like this is not this is not an OK thing to say. I think that it probably sort of ties back to and is part and parcel of this problem

broader concern that the US posture is very different in Trump 2.0 than it was even in Trump 1.0 that sort of the the sort of respect for borders is maybe not there and I think there's a real question over like what that means like how real that is what's what's going to happen next I think is very uncertain at this moment well most directly related to Europe in this regard is Ukraine and Greenland

What's the strategy on both of those? Yeah. So Greenland, as your listeners may or may not know, is an autonomous territory of Denmark. Greenland itself is not an EU member, but Denmark is an EU member. And so this is a real concern for Europe that...

President Trump has talked about acquiring Greenland one way or another. And I think that there's a real question about like, how serious is this? Is this a bargaining chip? If it is a bargaining chip, what can we give him to make it go away? It was really interesting when I arrived in Brussels a few weeks ago,

there was this real sense coming from the Danes that nobody should talk about this. Like, maybe if you just don't talk about Greenland, it will go away. Like, keep it out of the headlines and this may fade. I think we've seen pretty clearly that that didn't happen. President Trump has continued to talk about it. We saw earlier this week a bunch of the

European leaders, including Mette Frederiksen, who is the PM of Denmark, coming out and making more full-throated statements, basically saying that they're going, Europe will defend its territorial integrity. I think that at the end of the day, though, how you do that and what this looks like is really uncertain because it's not entirely clear what Trump's going to do.

I think one thing that we've heard very clearly is, again, I think step one in Europe's response here is appeasement. And I think that they've been very clear that they hear what Trump is saying. They hear that the Arctic is going to be strategically important and they are willing to dedicate more resources to making sure that like this important route to the Arctic is in safe and friendly hands, basically. And so I think that there is this idea that behaviors towards Greenland could change because of what Trump has done.

While Trump is talking about the United States taking over places like we mentioned, Greenland, Gaza, the Panama Canal...

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You know, thinking about this in terms of norms, you know, norms over the past 60 years, how are leaders reacting to this kind of stuff? And maybe in addition to that, Trump's adherence to democratic norms more broadly. Yeah.

Yeah, so I think this comes back not to sound like an absolute broken record, but at least at an EU level, I think this comes back to the point where they are still so much in appeasement mode. Like, I think they are avoiding saying anything that could make the situation escalate.

And so I think you've really seen not a huge, super full-throated response to this kind of thing, partially because at an EU level, it's like, if you comment on this, it might actually worsen the situation. And so I think it's been a relatively muted reaction, at least again, at an EU level, that's not necessarily the same across the 27 member countries.

And so I think it's been interesting to watch, though, because I think what you're seeing at an official level is quite different from what you see like on the ground, just if you're like bumping around Brussels. I was on a flight from Brussels to Washington yesterday, actually. And of course, because I'm a good journalist, I eavesdrop on flights. And

And it was very interesting, like how much I heard people talking about the USAID thing everywhere I went on this flight. Like it was just like it was the talk of the entire airplane. Even the flight attendants, they were like, you know, pouring wine. Have you heard? Can you imagine? The flight attendants were not, but on the people mover, for those of you who have not flown through Dulles, it's a particularly terrible system where when you land in the international terminal, you then have to get on like a

massive people mover to get back to the actual airport. And in the people mover, everybody was comparing whether their organizations were going to be hit by the USAID cuts, which was somewhat hilarious to me. Like it was like the plane was bonding over USAID cuts. The deep state in action. The deep state on a people mover. Brussels to DC flight. It's a unique place, right? Yeah.

Well, the picture you're painting is one in which it seems like Europe needs the United States more than the United States needs Europe, and that that is framing how they respond both politically and politically.

economically. And the number one word I've heard you say is appeasement. And in some ways that feeds into Trump's argument, which is like, oh, Europe has just been taking advantage of the United States, right? When it comes to they need us more on trade, they need us to buy their goods more than we need them to buy our goods. They need us to defend them more than we need them to help us go to war. And they didn't even join us for the

So, I mean, does Trump have a point? And I know that's like a sort of weird question to pose to, as you mentioned, a journalist whose job it is to describe the world and not take a side. But like, what leverage does Europe have?

So I'll answer the way I think they would answer, which is, you know, if step one is appeasement, step two is education. Right. And I think Europe has been trying to come out with this message that is actually, in fact, you need us to even if you don't seem to realize it. I think this has been.

basically the second thing that happens in every major speech coming out on a European level right now. The first thing they say is, we're ready to negotiate. We're prepared to make tough concessions. And then the second thing they say is, and by the way, this would be terrible for you too. But why would it be terrible for...

I guess, what are the specifics there? What are the teeth they put into that? So I think the first thing they'll point out is that Europe is a big consumer of American services. The second thing they'll point out is European companies employ a lot of Americans. 3.5 million is the number that Ursula von der Leyen will often throw out. I think the third point thing that they'll point out is supply chains are not just like the simplistic, you know,

straightforward thing that they were in the 1960s or the 1970s. It's a big interconnected world. And a lot of companies operate in multiple jurisdictions and have businesses that kind of span the gamut. And so if you try and disentangle them, that can be really expensive for enterprise. Which is to say, like, American companies may import a German part of

And the minute you make that part 25% more expensive, then American manufacturing itself suffers or something like that. Or, yeah, to give an even more concrete example, take the liquor industry, right? So I was at an event recently for the liquor industry, co-hosted, interestingly, by the European Distillery Trade Group and the American Distillery Trade Group. So, like, U.S. and EU, like, partners.

We're bourbon and scotch meat in a room.

The point that a lot of these companies were making is that in the liquor industry, you've got a lot of little mom and pop shops who are just trying to get a start in export market. But the big companies tend to have brands, brand portfolios that are highly geographically concentrated because you can't if it's cognac.

And it's produced somewhere else. It's just brandy, right? Like liquor tends to be very geographically tied. You know, you can't have champagne from Washington state. It's not possible. Champagne always comes from France. And so it's very geographically tied. And so the issue here is that if you slap tariffs on and if there are retaliatory tariffs, these companies are going to suffer because they are not going to be able to sell their product for the same kinds of prices. And it's not necessarily the case that things can just be easily relocated.

And so I think that's a really concrete example that shows that these companies are quite globalized sometimes, and it can be quite difficult to do the disentanglement. Okay, so we have the appeasement, we have the education. And if I remember correctly, the third prong is preparation. What is Europe prepared to do?

Yeah, so we do not have an extremely detailed sense yet because for obvious reasons they are keeping this very close to the chest. They have not given us lists of things they're planning on tariffing yet. But what we do know is they had a Trump Task Force operational the whole way through 2024. They don't love the term Trump Task Force. They didn't call it that internally. That was a name that got slapped on it by people who were interacting with it. But it was basically this group at the European Commission, which is again, it's the executive branch at the trade group there.

working behind the scenes trying to figure out what counter responses might look like. And they were preparing for either election outcome, but clearly they were focused on what would happen if in a world where tariffs went up quite a bit.

And so I think that they have a bunch of scenarios locked in a vault somewhere prepared to roll out. Von der Leyen recently got asked, are you ready? Like, if this hits you, are you ready for it? And she said, all I can say is we are prepared. But when you talk to people around Brussels, it sounds like they've really coalesced around a couple of discrete principles.

One of those is that it's important to be targeted. It's important to think about what you're hitting, not just there's a real bias against just across the board random tariffs and toward more targeted response because I think there's this recognition that curbing trade is painful. And so I think there's an idea that we want to be as surgical as possible while in

inflicting enough pain to be effective. Another principle is move relatively quickly. And so we're seeing them talk about things like using new trade tools to potentially tariff services companies. The FT had a story that that could potentially affect Silicon Valley tech companies. And so I think there's a real sort of like throw everything at the wall approach happening right now because they don't know what things are going to look like. But it does seem like there's quite a lot of preparation happening. All right. Well, to wrap this all up,

This is a new assignment for you covering Europe. You have obviously years of experience covering the Fed and the U.S. economy. What are the biggest questions that you have for the next four years? Oh, that's a good question. I think I mean, I'm an economics nerd. So I think one of my.

biggest and most fascinating questions, the thing I'm really interested in, is whether Europe has any real shot of climbing out of the economic doldrums that it finds itself in, or whether it is sort of, for demographic and structural reasons, just confined to this, like if this is the speed limit for Europe from now on. And I think you can make a pretty good argument on either side. And so I think that's going to be a fascinating story to watch play out. Like, can Ursula von der Leyen

actually turn this ship around? And I don't think we know the answer, which I think makes it a really interesting theme. So I think that's one. I think the rise of the far right, like how that plays out, whether there's a backlash, whether it deepens or persists, I think is going to be really fascinating. I think the third one I'm absolutely completely enamored by this story is what happens with the Digital Services Act.

which is Europe's tech regulation. And they are currently doing a bunch of investigations, including INDEX under their new DSA. But those investigations, because it's so new, we don't really know how toothy they're going to be yet. We don't really know, you know, how Europe is going to use this, how they're going to draw the line between being technocratic versus pro-technical.

policing free speech. You know, I think that it's going to be really interesting to see how the DSA shapes up and plays out and whether it can sort of be a meaningful tool in a world where the United States is skeptical of European regulation of tech companies. And so I think that's going to be a really interesting theme to watch. And then I think the final theme that is fascinating is just how does Europe navigate a world where it is torn between China and the United States

and all of its trading partners. It's a very open economy. It is hugely reliant on the rest of the world, both to take in its exports and to send it imports. And so what does a world where decoupling and geopolitical isolationism is increasingly sort of the name of the game, what does that world look like for Europe? So I think those are sort of my four big ones.

All right. Well, we're going to try to hear more from you on all of them in the coming years, but we're going to leave it there for today. Thank you so much, Gina. Thanks for having me. My name is Galen Druk. Our producers are Shane McKeon and Cameron Tretavian. You can get in touch by emailing us at galen.druk at 538.com. You can also, of course, tweet at us with questions or comments. If you're a fan of the show, leave us a rating or review in the Apple Podcast Store or tell someone about us. Thanks for listening, and we will see you soon.

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