Diplomacy is well aware of the situation in which the European Commission has been placed in recent months in its trade negotiations with the American administration. This situation is called "damage control". In it, the initiative to renegotiate the existing situation comes from the other side, it holds the "strong trump cards" and once again it will be the one to gain from the change in the constellation.
Therefore, the question for the European Union in the trade negotiations with the US was not what Brussels could gain from them, but rather to limit the looming losses.
"Damage control" - if the circumstances suggest incurring losses, at least they should be as small as possible. If we are going to hit each other, let it not be in the face. Kidney stones hurt, but at least they are not as visible as a black eye.
After her meeting with Donald Trump, which took place at the American president's golf resort in Scotland, Ursula von der Leyen's eye received a telltale bruise.
Yes, the EU showed its wisdom and refused to get involved in a severe trade war with the United States. Brussels also deserves respect for not wanting to punish European consumers by imposing tariffs on American imports. Because it is the person at the end of the consumption chain who pays the price of the imposed tariffs.
Moreover, for a number of European countries, with a particular emphasis on those from Eastern Europe, the issue of relations with the United States does not even go so much through trade as through security. Hence their attitude towards trade negotiations with the US: if the price of cooperation with the US in the field of security and defence implies trade concessions, say these (Eastern) European countries, so be it.
Anyway, no sane person, with Irish whiskey, French wine, Czech beer, Polish vodka or a brandy cauldron in the yard, will reach for American bourbon or their steroid corn. But the Patriot missile defence system is a different beer. The only American "beer" that we would actually use.
However, the EU has failed to instrumentalise key assets of its own in its negotiations with the US.
The first is that Brussels has traditionally been the US's largest trading partner (unlike the UK). But London, in its trade agreement with the Americans, received a punitive 10% universal rate, and Brussels - 15%.
The second is that the EU and the US are allies in NATO (unlike Japan). But in its trade deal with Washington, Tokyo has committed to a smaller amount to invest in the American economy than promised by the Europeans (if the East Asian country has promised investments worth $550 billion for the American economy, then those of the EU are worth $600 billion, to which we must add the request that Brussels will purchase American LNG, nuclear fuel and technologies worth $750 billion in the next three years).
Of course, let's not be hostage to these amounts, since they are difficult to realize anyway - in both the Japanese and European cases. But the march of racketeering is simply different.
The nature of the EU-US trade agreement is not what allies or friends sharing common values would conclude.
It cannot be, since the US president sees the EU as a competitor (even though Brussels is his largest trading partner) and NATO as a burden (even though countries like Poland, the UK, the Netherlands, Italy, etc. continue to be major customers of the US military-industrial complex). The negotiated deal between Brussels and Washington resembles an agreement between partners, each of whom is driven by their own interests.
The US interest is to ensure greater access for American goods to European markets, to receive more European investment in the US economy and to take "hard" money from the imposed tariffs. Trump's specific interest is to try to balance the US trade deficit with the EU and say that he has concluded the "biggest trade deal" in the world.
The EU's interest is to avoid a trade war with the US. It would lead to punishing European consumers through the introduction of reciprocal pro-inflationary measures such as tariffs and to further collisions in relations with Washington in the context of Russian militarization in the east of the Old Continent.
A user on "Ex" very successfully managed to summarize the trade agreement between the US and the EU: "The Americans got the deal. The Europeans got the bill" (the Americans got the deal, the Europeans - the bill).
In fact, the EU has somehow gotten used to ending up with the bill in its hands in recent years.
We continue to receive it as a result of the migrant pressure on the Old Continent, carried out in various waves since 2011, along with the Arab Spring and the subsequent war in Syria.
It was the migrant crisis that caused two colossal damages to Europe, internal and external.
The internal one was twofold: the furrowing of the Old Continent with ghettos of foreigners and the subsequent populist wave of Euroscepticism. It is precisely these attitudes that are exploited to this day by Russian propaganda.
External damage: the EU becoming an easy target for blackmail by third countries that were involved in controlling the influx of refugees at the EU's external borders (Turkey, Libya, Algeria).
Against the backdrop of the unfolding migrant crisis, the EU was late - both in concluding the agreement with Turkey to combat illegal immigration, and in introducing the policy for the return and readmission of migrants, and in securing its external borders and the crossing of human flows in the Mediterranean.
Since 2014, Russian aggression has spilled over into Ukraine.
The Minsk agreements, which were intended to peacefully resolve the conflict between Kiev and Moscow, created in negotiations with the participation of Germany and France, were so weak that both Russia and Ukraine they competed to see who would violate them more cynically.
And when the conflict between the two warring countries took on a military-conventional character in early 2022, instead of committing to real action, the EU responded with a long fuss, a slow and painful wondering. But will offensive weapons be sent to Ukraine? If so, should they include long-range missiles? Will Kiev be allowed to strike Russian territory? And will the Ukrainians be provided with combat aircraft? The answer to all these questions was affirmative, but it came at a snail's pace and at a price that Kiev is still paying to this day.
Unlike the migrant crisis, however, at least the Russian aggression against Ukraine had a positive effect on Europe: the EU finally understood that additional investments were needed in its security and defense policy. And this has been achieved by expanding its own military-industrial complex and securing supply chains for valuable and rare minerals needed to produce military hardware. Meanwhile, NATO has welcomed new members in the form of Finland and Sweden.
However, in each of these crises - the migrant crisis from the Middle East and North Africa, the Russian military aggression against Ukraine and the hybrid propaganda against Europe, even the trade negotiations with the US - the European Commission has followed the circumstances.
These are three crises, each of which puts Europe at different risks. And in each of them, the European Commission has simply not been up to the task it should be.
Perhaps the only chance for Ursula von der Leyen to be on the winning side is if she starts negotiating with herself. But even then, I think, we will have to wait and see what the bookmakers predict.