(This article first appeared in Human Events: https://humanevents.com/2025/08/05/shea-bradley-ferrell-trump-the-disruptor-secures-america-first-trade-deal-with-eu)

By: Shea Bradley-Farrell, Senior Fellow

As Trump rebalances America's relationship with the European Union, European leadership will be forced to correct their self-destructive policies and stop taking America for granted.

Economic "threats" and "bullying" are how the mainstream media and the allegedly "informed" foreign policy establishment describe President Donald Trump's recent trade deal with the European Union (EU). Bullying?

I guess it doesn't matter that U.S. companies have been burdened for decades with a multitude of tariffs, barriers, and protectionist policies that keep U.S. goods out of European markets, or that the EU has a goods trade surplus with the U.S. of $236 billion, or that European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen even said herself that the deal was necessary to "rebalance trade." President Trump continues to deliver for "America First," and his critics can't stand it.

Trump is rectifying what decades of former Presidents would not. After years of slashing our own tariffs and trade barriers, all while paying the price (literally) for ever-increasing foreign protections against U.S. products, Trump is finally giving U.S. companies a level playing field. Besides handicapping U.S. companies and workers, the U.S. trade policies that first focused on rebuilding Europe after WWII, then on nurturing developing countries all over the world, created a U.S. global goods trade deficit—currently valued at $1.2 trillion (2024), the highest on record. The last time the U.S. even had a trade surplus was in 1975.

The EU has a significant surplus in trade with the U.S. in goods that are also made in America—like pharmaceuticals and medical devices, and motor vehicles and parts. Did Trump get the better deal with von der Leyen? Yes, he did. The U.S. will now impose 15% tariffs on most EU goods, including cars, but U.S. tariffs on the same goods will be zero.

Early on, von der Leyen played games with Trump and threatened even higher tariffs on the U.S instead of negotiating—and it backfired on her. Von der Leyen's moves weren't smart: the U.S. buys more exports from the EU than any of its trading partners, and the EU desperately needs U.S. markets.

This is particularly true, especially because Europe's economy has been in steady decline—and it's their fault. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in Europe used to be 90% of America's GDP, ten to 15 years ago, but has declined to only about 65% of U.S. GDP. As JPMorgan Chase chief executive Jamie Dimon remarked, "That's not good."

European bureaucracy, which seeks to regulate its citizens extensively, has created a tax system that is excessively expensive and fails to protect new workers or incentivize industry and innovation. Instead of fixing these problems, EU leadership focuses on building a collective "war economy" around the Russia-Ukraine war, which aims to keep the war going indefinitely.

In addition, Europe built its economy on cheap Russian energy. Before the Russia-Ukraine war, Russia provided the EU with more than 50% of its solid fossil fuels (like coal), more than 25% of its crude oil, and 43% of its natural gas. But Russian President Vladimir Putin isn't a business partner you can count on and has repeatedly weaponized energy supplies to circumvent sanctions. In the first 9 months of the war, and even before it started, Putin strategically cut gas supplies to the EU and then shut down the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, causing a severe European energy crisis—gas prices soared, inflation crippled state economies, workers lost jobs, and industries shut down.

Remember when Trump warned the Germans against reliance on Russian energy at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in 2018? German officials actually snickered and laughed at him. Von der Leyen's agreement to purchase $750 billion in U.S. energy as part of the U.S.-EU trade deal is a big win for both sides, and so is her agreement to invest another $600 billion in U.S. companies.

Though some doubt their ability to do so, the EU will also purchase "hundreds of billions of dollars' worth of military equipment," which can provide U.S. defense contractors with big business. At the same time, Europe gets the best military equipment in the world. And, perhaps it will also help them fulfill their NATO spending commitments.

Trump is challenging the global systems and disrupting the "status quo," which blindly accepts that the U.S. will always pay higher tariffs than we impose and more than our fair share for NATO. Thanks to the disastrous policies of the Biden administration, the U.S. also, by far, bore the financial burden of the Ukraine war for three years.

As Trump rebalances America's relationship with the European Union, European leadership will be forced to correct their self-destructive policies and stop taking America for granted. Hopefully, it will also push them toward a very serious restructuring of the EU's economic and social welfare systems. The EU can no longer run a huge trade surplus over the U.S. while allowing its economy to be buried under bureaucracy, burdensome taxes, and woke regulations.

In the meantime, as part of the trade deal, the EU agrees to work with the U.S. to eliminate its heavy tariff and non-tariff barriers and protectionist policies, opening European markets to U.S. companies. U.S. barriers to some sectors have persisted for years "despite repeated efforts at resolution." New markets can drive U.S. economic growth and add American jobs. Perhaps if the EU sticks to this agreement in good faith, Trump will eventually lower U.S. tariffs on EU goods.

Europe is our partner and ally, and U.S. trading goals should ultimately strengthen both Europe and our partnership. Countries like Russia, Iran, China, and North Korea are eager to tear us apart, destroy Western civilization, and weaken our collaborative security. But economic security and national security are closely linked, and these countries would also welcome U.S.-EU economic fragmentation.

In only a short time, Trump has used tariffs as a great diplomatic tool that leverages American economic power. He has refocused foreign aid and is building a foreign policy on 'Peace Through Strength and Prosperity,' at the same time reinvesting in American companies and our hardworking middle class. Don't let the naysayers distract you— America is indeed headed toward a 'Golden Age.'

Shea Bradley-Farrell, Ph.D. is a strategist in national security and foreign policy in Washington, D.C. and president of Counterpoint Institute for Policy, Research and Education. She is a senior fellow at the Gold Institute for International Strategy, a Washington, DC-based foreign policy think tank. Her latest book is Last Warning to the West. Follow her at counterpointinstititute.org or on “X” @DrShea_DC and @CounterpointDC.