Trump Gives European Leaders an Excuse to Dump Bad Policies

 

"Not to jinx it, but Donald Trump's second term is off to a good start -- for Europe. Mr. Trump already has created enormous political and economic opportunities for the Continent if, and this is a huge if, any European politicians have the wit to seize their chance.

Amid the blizzard of executive orders and other actions that began on Monday, four matters are of particular relevance across the Atlantic. The Trump administration is withdrawing from the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate, scrapping Biden-era electric-vehicle mandates, ramping up American fossil-fuel production, and killing off a global corporate-tax agreement.

The first instinct of establishment European politicians and their media enablers is to interpret these steps as affronts to Europe. Which they are. Mr. Trump's abandonment of the decade-old global climate agreement is as strong a signal as Washington can send that the new administration doesn't care about an issue that Europeans have come to understand in quasireligious terms. All the promised drilling, and new internal-combustion cars, adds insult to this injury. Withdrawal from the major tax deal negotiated at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development demonstrates that the new administration is indifferent to European governments' desperate search for new revenue sources.

Note, however, that Mr. Trump at least isn't perpetuating the far bigger affront President Biden committed against our European friends: lying to them.

Mr. Biden acted as though there were a political consensus in America in support of the policies Europeans liked, when there was obviously none. The Democrat rejoined the Paris climate deal despite the Senate's refusal over many years to ratify it and Mr. Trump's first attempt to withdraw from it. Biden administration regulations on energy production and electric-vehicle mandates were plainly and predictably unpopular. His Treasury secretary, Janet Yellen, signed the OECD tax deal despite a record of bipartisan opposition in Washington to similar global tax proposals.

In each instance, Team Biden prompted European governments to act on the assumption that these policies would last, supported by U.S. public approval. As a result the Continent embraced a suite of climate-related mandates, subsidies, taxes and the like that make little sense at the best of times and are viable -- possibly, barely -- only if America engages in the same economic self-sabotage. European leaders invested considerable political energy in translating the global tax pact into European law, and they also appear to be counting on the future revenue.

Europeans should have known better than to trust Mr. Biden, but that's beside the point. Public support in Europe for measures to combat climate change and tax big U.S. companies remains high, despite recent weakening on the climate front. Which European politician could withstand those political pressures when European voters thought they saw America acceding to their priorities? And which leader could openly question the honesty of the U.S. officials sitting across the table at global summits?

Mr. Trump, for all his inconstancy as an ally, at least now is telling Europe the truth about America. Which is the best thing any U.S. leader could do for them." [1]

1. Political Economics: Trump Gives European Leaders an Excuse to Dump Bad Policies. Sternberg, Joseph C.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 24 Jan 2025: A15.