This month's edition of the magazine looks at the crumbling of the political centre, Trump's tariff turbulence and the risks to judicial independence.
The past week in global trade has felt like a high-stakes poker game. On 2 April — Donald Trump’s self-proclaimed ‘Liberation Day’ — the US announced a baseline 10% tariff on nearly all its trading partners and a 20% tariff on EU-made goods. The new levies added to the 25% tariffs Trump imposed on EU steel, aluminium and cars earlier in the year.
Global markets plummeted, wiping out trillions of dollars, as economists and bankers warned of an imminent recession. It was called a watershed moment in history, one in which the US president was upending the global economic order. But then, in typical Trump fashion, the White House walked back the move — at least partially — less than 24 hours after the new tariffs took effect, announcing a 90-day pause on levies above the 10% baseline rate for nearly all countries except China.
For European leaders, it’s been a dizzying, whiplash-inducing turn of events. The sudden shift has left them scrambling to understand what exactly Trump’s endgame is — and how the EU should respond. For now, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has said the bloc will pause counter-tariffs it had been preparing for 90 days “to give negotiations a chance.”
Meanwhile, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni — a close ideological ally of
Trump who has called the tariffs “wrong” — will travel to Washington next week to meet with the US president. Meloni’s efforts to be a bridge between the US and the EU come as her Spanish counterpart, Pedro Sánchez, has called for the bloc to pivot east and deepen trade ties with Beijing.
Regardless, the EU is once again being forced into a reactive posture — responding to external pressure rather than setting its own terms. The trade turmoil, like the EU’s failure to take control of its own security and defence, underscores a deeper problem: Europe’s longstanding dependence on the US. When Washington lurches, Brussels scrambles.
The coming weeks will test the EU’s strategic patience and diplomatic finesse.
They will also demand clarity: is the bloc ready to assert itself in an increasingly
transactional world order? Or will it once again find itself reading from a script it didn’t write?
— Christopher Alessi, Editor-in-Chief