"Europe is willing to reduce car tariffs to zero, all tariffs to zero, if the U.S. does the same, We would do it, if they do it. That remains to be seen.”
-- Cecilia Malmstrom, the European Commissioner for Trade
So, you remember that Merkel stall chatter from back around the second month of the administration? You remember how the Germans kept chatting over how things can't go this way? You remember how they woke up and said that they'd stand against the American trade position?
So, it's mostly all over. The tariff game will end, and no one will have to play the tariff 'hard-talk' anymore.
The most curious thing? Trump learned one single lesson out of this. Don't bother chatting with the Germans anymore....go direct to the EU, and leave the Berlin crowd out of the negotiations. I think you will see more of this over the next couple of years, and the realization that Berlin is not the center of power anymore.
The only question left....how long will it take until most Germans realize that there's no reason to really show up and vote in national elections because the real power is in Brussels?
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