No. of Recommendations: 19
Why are you saying "there isn't realistic space for negotiations"? Because that's what both the Japanese and EU teams reported encountering. For example:
“To be frank, it’s still not completely clear what the U.S. really wants. They ask a very disparate number of different things,” said one European diplomat, who described the talks as in the discussion phase. “So we are still trying to figure out what are the real priorities from the U.S.”
“Europe coming up with offers would be a fucking mistake. Americans don’t want to negotiate,” said an EU diplomat. “It’s about strategic patience: let’s not push things and let [themselves] stew.”https://www.politico.com/news/2025/04/29/us-tariff...I mean, it's gratifying to Trump's ego that Meloni is willing to come to the U.S. and say all kinds of accommodating things to him - but she's not the one who negotiates trade for the EU. Von der Leyen is singing a different tune, and she's the one that matters.
I think the problem here is you're conflating discretionary with critical goods and assuming everything is critical for our survival. It's not. No one starves if, say, cheap gym equipment sourced from China isn't as cheap anymore.Ah, but the question isn't what's critical for
our survival. No one's going to starve in any event, since we're going to be awash in surplus agricultural products.
The question is what's critical for
the Administration's survival. Within a few weeks (not 90 days) we're going to see real consequences for both consumers and workers as the impacts of the tariffs start to kick in. Bare shelves, more expensive products for the consumers. Layoffs among the people who work with those goods, like the 20K that got laid off from UPS and all the longshoremen and truckers and retail workers who are going to lose hours and jobs when there just isn't as much product working through the system. While we don't
need cheap gym equipment from China, we
want to have affordable....well, almost every consumer good. At some point the Administration isn't going to be able to hold the line against a lot of very angry voters who are disappointed that they and their families can't get the clothes and shoes and games and toys and housewares and textiles and everything else that they used to be able to get. At some point the Administration is going to be facing the same kinds of rising prices and supply chain shortages that cratered Biden's political position.
China and the EU can hold out a lot longer than the Administration can, and they know it. They only need to go through a few months of potential unemployment at some of their manufacturing sector, which they can solve with money. Which they have. And the relevant government actors (Xi and the EU collective government) are much more politically insulated than the Administration. Once voters start getting really angry about bare shelves and rising prices, Trump is going to have to fold.
If it even gets to that - if it looks like the Administration is asking for more than is reasonable, and a deal can't get done, this might to show up in the bond market as well - and we've already seen that Trump can't handle even 48 hours of
that kind of consequence.
So, yeah - even if Meloni's happy to come over here and kiss Trump's ass (to borrow his formulation) because her voters will love that, Xi and von der Leyen and Sheinbaum have no reason to do that. They'll have talks, but they're not going to agree to anything that one-sidedly benefits the U.S. to any great degree - and Trump has invested too much into this effort to accept minor gains from trade talks at this point. It almost
has to keep going for a while - our major trading partners almost
have to test whether Trump can handle the pain that will be inflicted on his base. Which is why the EU, China, Canada, Mexico, and Japan are not rushing into a quick agreement with us to make this go away.
