How Trump is forcing Europe to get real on steel

Putting a historic industry at the center of policymaking while under pressure from an erratic US President Donald Trump, an expansionist Russian President Vladimir Putin and an ambitious Chinese President Xi Jinping, makes sense coming from Brussels, according to Sander Tordoir, chief economist at the Centre for European Reform.

“I’d consider the EUCO a success, all things considered,” he said. “And the leaders are simply working well together at the moment. But there’s a lot still to be done.” 

Tordoir pointed to a pitfall of national leaders supporting their domestic industry first over a joint European scheme. “A solution could be to keep [the] headquarters in Germany as the country that would be spending the most, but then build factories elsewhere,” he said.