I am not going to try to decipher Trump's latest screed about his powers to bully other countries. The main point is he was never interested in "deals" and, as his long career showed us, he never feels bound by them anyway.
He first seized on tariffs because he has some broken brain understanding of trade balances and who actually pays them, but then kept pushing the tariff button because it got him attention and because he realized it was a good bullying tool.
It should not have taken the geniuses in the rest of the world this long to realize that you don't cave to bullies.
Europe has warned that trade deals struck with the U.S. could now be at risk after President Donald Trump unveiled a new global 15% tariff on all imports at the weekend.
Trump’s move came after the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday struck down his global tariffs policy, implemented last spring, that had upset the long-standing global trading order.
There are no deals! That is the whole thing with President Deals! That is his whole career! The art of the deal is breaking them!
...as I was writing this:
European Parliament negotiators on Monday suspended the EU-US trade pact, as threats from Washington and a US Supreme Court ruling cast doubt over the validity of the 2025 agreement.
and then:
