Europe's necessary appeasement of Donald Trump

Surrendering on trade is worth it to keep America engaged in the continent's security.

- Janan Ganesh

The oddest experience this job offers is the sensation of changing one’s mind during the writing of a column.

This was going to be an attack on the European Union (EU) for surrendering to US President Donald Trump over trade. In the construction of the argument, it became less and less clear that a better option was ever open.

All of America’s trading partners - China, India, Brazil - are in a pickle, but the EU is mired in a rather different substance. One of its neighbours is fighting for survival against Russia. Two current members have had their airspace compromised by the same trespasser in recent weeks.

That so rich a continent still depends on American protection 80 years after World War II is a disgraceful fact — but it is, for now, a fact. If the price of that protection is being held over a barrel on the serious but ultimately not existential matter of trade, Europe must assume the position.

Quoted in Suddeutsche Zeitung in August, Dr Sabine Weyand, the EU’s director-general for trade, did not even pretend the tariff capitulation had much to do with economics. “The European side was under massive pressure to find a quick solution to stabilise transatlantic relations with regard to security guarantees.”

In case her point got lost in that fog of memorandum-speak, she clarified it. “We have a land war on the European continent. And we are completely dependent on the United States.” This is about as big a cheese as exists in officialdom.