European Union trade commissioner Maros Sefcovic described the recent U.S.-EU trade agreement in unvarnished terms. Agreeing to a 15% tariff on most exports to the United States and promising to purchase $750 billion worth of American energy over three years and to invest another $600 billion in the U.S. (not including an unspecified amount in additional orders of U.S.-made military hardware) was “clearly the best deal we could get.”
But was it? Since Donald Trump’s return to the White House, not only America’s trade partners, but also its universities, law firms and major media have had to ask: Does it pay to play in the theater of naked power or does transacting with Trump simply normalize pervasive lawlessness?
The question is fundamental, because it makes no sense to speak of “optimal” transactions — or of operative markets — in a state of lawlessness. Markets cannot function without the stability and predictability which the rule of law provides. In its absence, only spectacle and coercion remain.
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