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Rafael Pinto Borges
September 3, 2025
Gerd Altmann / Pixabay
While Donald Trump proclaims a new Declaration of Independence for the United States, Europe is sleepwalking through this historic shift. The state of European politics can best be captured by looking at the formation of Germany’s new government: sluggish, backward-looking, and obsessively state-centered.
No matter what is happening in the world, the political establishment in Berlin remains stuck in the status quo ante. Coalition negotiations between the CDU/CSU and SPD reveal that Berlin has failed to grasp the significance of Washington’s tariff salvos; it either cannot or will not see that we are witnessing the dawn of a new era. A global struggle for productive capital has begun, and the age of artificial economies—sustained only by cheap credit and repressive regulation—is drawing to a close.
The German coalition agreement breathes the stale air of the 1980s, a time when an ascending nation like Germany could still afford its welfare illusions. Once again, it is cheap credit—around a trillion euros of new public debt—that is expected to hold the coalition together over the next four years and sustain the illusion of German prosperity.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump is pursuing a dual strategy to reindustrialize America. Tariffs are pressuring companies to relocate production back to U.S. soil, while corporate tax cuts (slashing the corporate rate to 15%) and massive investments in AI, robotics, and space exploration aim to establish a modern industrial base. Yet this policy targets a deeper problem: it seeks to reverse the socioeconomic hollowing out of the United States. Decades of outsourcing had drained the nation—over 5 million manufacturing jobs were lost between 2000 and 2015 alone. Once-thriving industrial cities like Detroit crumbled, and the fentanyl crisis—with over 80,000 deaths annually—bears witness to the social despair caused by the collapse of America’s economic opportunity landscape.
Trump understood that a nation without an industrial heart loses its soul. Domestic value creation does more than create jobs—it gives communities pride, purpose, and a future. Local production—from semiconductors to electric vehicles—strengthens Main Street. New factories in Ohio and Texas not only provide employment but revive entire regions: mom-and-pop shops are reopening after the COVID lockdowns, schools are being renovated, and young people once again envision a future in their hometowns. Identity and belonging—the cornerstones of healthy societies—are being rebuilt.
An industrial renaissance may well become the salvation of America’s battered soul. True innovation occurs where value chains are tangible—in workshops, not hedge funds. An engineer working on robotics in Michigan sees himself as part of a greater endeavor, not a mere cog in a globalized machine. Trump’s project is nothing less than a reconquest of American identity—something the globalist elites of Europe avoid like the plague. As the U.S. races to improve its investment environment, it becomes a magnet for capital seeking real projects rather than speculative returns. Europe watches cynically and mockingly, blind to the fact that Trump’s strategy may mark a bifurcation point in global economics and societal development.
America is in fact turning away from Europe not only ideologically but also materially. Berlin and Brussels continue to fight a losing battle: scrambling for cheap credit and defending an artificial economy built on climate ideology and moralism.
Europe’s response to Trump’s offensive remains fundamentally defensive: the European Commission timidly offers tariff reductions, and the Supply Chain Act is postponed (only to be reintroduced with greater force later?). Yet there is no true reform spirit. European media mock Trump as an “economic destroyer,” unable to grasp the deeper reconfiguration of the global economy. Those who fail at diagnosis are bound to prescribe the wrong therapy.
Flying over Donald Trump’s agenda is the American flag, adorned with a single word that feels like a warning: Independence! This especially applies to the energy sector. At the core of every economy lies the question of energy generation and availability. Europe, historically energy-poor, has long pursued an exclusionary strategy: through the CO2 narrative, it has sought to pressure energy-rich countries into forsaking oil and gas—an attempt to level the playing field for a continent that imports around 60% of its energy needs.
Europe’s Green Deal is the political manifesto of this endeavor. It is a thinly veiled attack on industrial margins, designed to ultimately crush them. Announcements of plant closures by companies like Volkswagen, or BASF’s moves abroad, are not isolated warnings—they are symptoms of systematic deindustrialization. Through relentless new regulations, CO2 taxation, and bans on combustion engines, Brussels is driving European industry out of the continent. Since the start of the Ukraine war, German energy prices have risen by 80%, stripping energy-intensive companies of their competitive edge, regardless of their innovation or creativity.
Meanwhile, the United States—the world’s largest oil producer—has gone on the energy offensive. Controversial projects like the Dakota Access Pipeline, long stalled by NGOs such as Greenpeace and political opposition, are now being fast-tracked. Nuclear energy is experiencing a renaissance, while Germany prepares for dark, windless nights reliant on heavily subsidized renewables. The outcome of this unequal battle is already clear.
Yet Donald Trump is not Europe’s true enemy. Nor are his policies, his administration, or even his often unconventional communication style the real threat. The real adversary lies deep within Europe’s soul: a pervasive insecurity in the face of an approaching storm. This storm carries the seeds of profound change—the end of globalism and a return to power politics. It demands a renewed understanding of economics and the re-emergence of meritocratic values: one must sow before one can reap. Over decades of welfare-state illusions, many Europeans have forgotten this basic truth.
