Fyodor Lukyanov: Here’s what Trump really wants from his trade war

The US president believes the EU will obey — and he may be right

US President Donald Trump wasn’t joking. As promised, he has launched a dramatic overhaul of his country’s trade policy, introducing sweeping tariffs to force what he calls a rebalancing of imports and exports with key partners. The move has shaken markets and triggered warnings of a looming global recession – or even a depression. Trump, known for his aggressive, high-stakes tactics, has left little doubt that his strategy is deliberate and flexible only on his terms. Yet the outcome remains uncertain, and most experts predict the US will suffer alongside everyone else, if not more.

Economists are largely in agreement: any gains from this approach, if they come, will be long-term. In the short term, Americans can expect higher inflation, struggling manufacturers, weakened consumer power, and declining market capitalization. But Trump is not concerned with consensus. He is a political brawler, and his goal is not simply economic reform, but to fundamentally reshape the global system that, in his view, is dragging America toward decline.

To understand Trump’s mindset, it is worth recalling the now-infamous 2016 essay “The Flight 93 Election,” written by conservative thinker Michael Anton. In it, Anton compared Trump voters to the passengers of the hijacked plane on 9/11 who charged the cockpit, sacrificing their lives to stop disaster. The metaphor was stark: America, hijacked by liberal globalists, was on a suicidal course. Trump, in this framing, was the last-ditch response to avert collapse.

Anton went on to serve in Trump’s first administration, grew disillusioned, but has returned to prominence in the second. He now reportedly heads policy planning at the State Department and is involved in talks with Russia. It is as if the logic of Flight 93, once applied to US domestic politics, has now expanded to the entire world. The Trump administration sees the current global order as unsustainable and even dangerous to American power. In their view, if the system isn’t smashed now, the US will soon be unable to fix it at all.

Trump believes he can strongarm countries into renegotiating trade deals by leveraging America’s market power. For some, this may work. Many nations simply cannot afford a full-blown trade war with the US. But the two key targets of Trump’s economic offensive – China and the European Union – are not so easily bullied.

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In China’s case, the country is close to parity with the US in global economic weight and influence. While it is not a hegemon, China sees itself as a peer, a necessary pole in a multipolar world. That self-image makes capitulation to US demands unthinkable. Beijing is confident it can weather the storm and perhaps even outlast Washington. It may be underestimating its opponent, but it will not back down without a fight.

The EU, meanwhile, presents a different challenge. Its trade policy is controlled by the European Commission, not individual member states. This centralization limits flexibility and slows response times, especially in crises. While countries like Germany, Europe’s top exporter, are directly impacted by US tariffs, they cannot negotiate alone. Coordination within the EU has always been difficult, and in moments of real pressure, national interests often override collective ones.

Moreover, the EU is militarily and politically dependent on the United States, a dependency that has long complicated its ability to assert itself. While Trump views Western Europe increasingly as an adversary, particularly on trade and even in security, the bloc still sees the US as a vital ally. It cannot, for now, imagine a future without the American security umbrella. This imbalance gives Washington leverage that it doesn’t have with China.

Paradoxically, Western Europe is now caught between the rhetoric of defiance and the instinct to comply. Trump appears to believe that, unlike China, the EU will eventually fold. And traditionally, it has done just that. But this time, submission would come at the cost of significant ambitions and without any clear reward.

While the US-China standoff is entering a phase of public defiance followed by expected negotiations, the trajectory of US-EU relations is murkier. Trump seems to expect full capitulation from Brussels, and soon.

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This expectation may be misguided. Western European governments are under internal economic pressure, especially with growing protests from industry and agriculture, which bear the brunt of rising costs and lost export markets. Yet Brussels remains ideologically committed to the transatlantic alliance and the liberal economic order, even as that order is being rewritten from Washington.

Trump’s ambitions are vast and immediate: to restructure world trade, settle the conflict in Ukraine, and contain Iran – all simultaneously, and all in his second term. He sees no need to wait, compromise, or follow established diplomatic pacing. This is the Flight 93 strategy applied to geopolitics: crash the system before it crashes you.

It remains to be seen how much of this the rest of the world will tolerate. China won’t yield easily. The EU may grumble, delay, and attempt to negotiate – but if pushed far enough, it may also split internally under the strain. What is clear is that the US, under Trump, is no longer trying to lead the world. It is trying to reset it – on its own terms.

This article was first published in the newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta and has been translated and edited by the RT team