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2/ In Europe, a joke is making the rounds. Trump spent the year searching for a 51st state — Greenland said no, Canada said no, Panama said no. Meanwhile Europe, accused of civilizational decline, can't keep up with the membership applications.

3/ Trump came to office with a theory. The US is the world's largest import market. Applied with enough force, this leverage would produce concessions on trade, investment, and the rules governing global competition.

4/ Turns out it hasn't worked. The goods trade deficit hit a record $1.24 trillion in 2025. Manufacturing shed tens of thousands of jobs. Trade with China fell — but was diverted to Vietnam, Taiwan, and Mexico. The overall imbalance barely moved.

5/ Canada — the US's largest trading partner — walked away from negotiations in August. Mark Carney said the US approach had "called into question the reliability of any deal." That used to be our closest ally.

6/ Regardless of who wins in 2028, formal trade agreements with the United States no longer offer any certainty the terms will hold. Governments and investors must now permanently price in that risk.

7/ And where are countries looking instead? Europe. The EU concluded negotiations with India in January, Australia in March, Indonesia last September. Mercosur — 700 million people, the largest deal Brussels has ever signed — entered into force in May.

8/ The EU has long been mocked as too slow and too rule-bound. We all remember the jokes about the banana regulation.

9/ Those EU rules, though, were designed to make economic integration possible across a continent of vastly unequal economies. France and Germany couldn't simply override the Netherlands. That was the price the larger economies paid to bring the smaller ones in.

14/9/26, 5:51 pm1 repost7 likes

10/ The constraints that frustrate European governments when they want to act quickly are the same constraints that make European commitments durable.

11/ In the EU, trade agreements require Commission negotiation, qualified majority approval, and Parliament's consent. New tariffs require a formal investigation with statutory deadlines. There is no EU equivalent of Section 301 or Section 232.

12/ The UK, meanwhile, tried a different approach. The OBR estimates Brexit reduced trade with Europe by 15% and made the economy 4% less productive — roughly $135 billion a year. The promised US free trade deal never arrived.