Press

But many followers of European politics assume – and seemingly not without reason – that the return of a far right US president would be good for the populist right in Europe. Two-term Trump would “embolden” these politicians, says Luigi Scazzieri of the Centre for European Reform. “They will be less restrained in pushing forward ideas and policies that are socially conservative, anti-climate, anti-immigration, as these would again be normalised in the White House.”

"Von der Leyen understands where the political winds are blowing," said political analyst Luigi Scazzieri of the Centre for European Reform think-tank.

“My guess is in the long run we will end up with something that actually is more ambitious than you would think at the moment,” says Charles Grant, director of the Centre for European Reform, a British think-tank.

Zach Meyers, assistant director of the Centre for European Reform, said the tariff dispute illustrated Germany no longer led EU trade policy and that the influence of France too was more limited after Commission President Ursula von der Leyen removed French commissioner Thierry Breton and gave a less influential role to his successor.

“The stakes are hard to overstate. If Scholz had succeeded in overturning the tariffs at the eleventh hour, it would have vindicated China’s efforts to lean on individual member-states and been the final nail in the coffin of EU efforts to have a foreign economic policy,” said Sander Tordoir of the Centre for European Reform.