President Trump has big ambitions for the global trading system and is using tariffs to try to rip it down and rebuild it. But the European Union is taking action after action to make sure the continent is at the center of whatever world comes next.
As one of the globe’s biggest and most open economies, the E.U. has a lot on the line as the rules of trade undergo a once-in-a-generation upheaval. Its companies benefit from sending their cars, pharmaceuticals and machinery overseas. Its consumers benefit from American search engines and foreign fuels.
Those high stakes aren’t lost on Europe.
Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, the E.U.’s executive arm, has spent the past several weeks on calls and in meetings with global leaders. She and her colleagues are wheeling and dealing to deepen existing trade agreements and strike new ones. They are discussing how they can reduce barriers between individual European countries.
And they are talking tough on China, trying to make sure that it does not dump cheap metals and chemicals onto the European market as it loses access to American customers because of high Trump tariffs.
It’s an explicit strategy, meant to leave the economic superpower stronger and less dependent on an increasingly fickle America. As Ms. von der Leyen and her colleagues regularly point out, the U.S. consumer market is big — but not the be-all-end-all.
“The U.S. makes up 13 percent of global goods trade,” Maros Sefcovic, the E.U.’s trade commissioner, said in a recent speech. The goal “is to protect the remaining 87 percent and make sure that the global trade system prevails for the rest of us.”
Success is far from guaranteed. America is still the world’s biggest economy and a critical supplier of military technology and leadership for Europe. There is no real hope of replacing it in those roles overnight. Mr. Trump’s pivot is unlikely to be painless.
But not changing is not an option, as Ms. von der Leyen acknowledged in an interview with The Financial Times this week.
“I mean, never waste a good crisis,” she said.
Expanding the friend group.
Europe has made it clear that it is eager to negotiate with the United States. Mr. Sefcovic has traveled to Washington repeatedly and plans to return to the United States on Monday. The goal is to work toward “win-win outcomes,” Olof Gill, a spokesman for the European Commission, said on Friday.
The bloc is dangling carrots like cutting tariffs on cars and other industrial products, and ramping up purchases of American liquefied natural gas. It is also threatening retaliation if negotiations fail.
But striving for a deal is just Part 1 of the strategy. Part 2? Making new friends.
Europe has spent the time since Mr. Trump’s re-election working to strike or improve trade ties with various partners. Officials have been in talks with Mexico, India, South Korea, South Africa and Central Asia, to name a few. The E.U. announced just Thursday that it would begin free trade discussions with the United Arab Emirates.
Ms. von der Leyen also spoke this week to Mark Carney, the new Canadian prime minister.
“She reaffirmed the E.U.’s strong commitment to open and predictable trade, and expressed her determination to work closely with Canada on reforming the global trading system,” the bloc said in a statement.
Dealing with China.
The E.U. and the U.S. agree that the existing trading system has failed to prevent China from subsidizing production, allowing it to dump inexpensive products into other markets in a way that puts domestic producers out of business.
And Ms. von der Leyen has been clear that changes to the trade rules are now inevitable.
She told The F.T. that when it came to the World Trade Organization — the beating heart of the rules-based order that Europe holds dear — the goal was to “modernise, reform and stabilise.”
Ms. von der Leyen has underscored that Europe will be on watch as the U.S. and China become further embroiled in an all-out trade battle. China on Friday said it was raising its tariffs on American goods to 125 percent from 84 percent, retaliating for the third time in the escalating trade war between the two superpowers.
European officials are worried that Chinese companies will send their metals, chemicals and other products rushing toward the continent, with American customers out of reach. The E.U. has set up an “import surveillance task force” to make sure it can detect — and respond to — potential dumping.
When Ms. von der Leyen spoke to the Chinese premier earlier this week, she urged Beijing to negotiate with the United States and emphasized that China needs to work on longer-term structural solutions to rebalance its trading relationships, the E.U. said.
Some European leaders — including Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez of Spain — have even been pushing to enhance China and E.U. relations in a world of upheaval. Experts have said it is equally, if not more likely, that trade tensions between the two will intensify under all of the pressure.
But will it work?
Still, Europe’s basic strategy is clear: It’s pushing for a deal with the U.S., but it’s also recognizing that the world is on the cusp of change and hoping to ride that shift to success.
One question is whether all of its new alliances will trigger Mr. Trump. The American president has already vented on social media about Europe’s deal-making.
“If the European Union works with Canada in order to do economic harm to the USA, large scale Tariffs, far larger than currently planned, will be placed on them both,” he wrote on Truth Social in late March.
So far, that threat seems to have done little to deter conversations.
There is always the reality that Europe relies on American cooperation for more than just trade, though. Even if it can replace American customers and raw materials with other markets, U.S. military support is still critical in both the war in Ukraine and for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
But for now, the E.U. seems to accept that the rules are about to be rewritten. Given that, its leaders seem to be doing what they can to make sure that when it happens, they are holding the pen.