Analysis by WorldTribune Staff, July 28, 2025 Real World News
Much of the punditocracy (people who think they know stuff) assured us that President Donald Trump would destroy the U.S. economy with his “insane” tariff policy.
However Trump has consistently argued that access to the U.S. market is gold and that former policy-makers either lacked business experience or were idiots.
Former U.S. ambassador to the EU Gordon Sondland told Axios: “No one fully valued how much leverage our market creates when it comes to trade negotiations until Trump.”
President Donald Trump has used that leverage to great effect in securing major trade deals with the European Union and Japan in recent days.
“This is the reality of the asymmetric trade deals touted by the White House, which show how far foreign leaders will go to safeguard access to the U.S. market,” Courtenay Brown wrote for Axios on Monday.
What Trump got: The EU and Japan agreed to drop their tariff rates on the U.S. to zero, promised hundreds of billions in investments in the U.S., and opened their markets to American producers.
What the EU and Japan got: Some assurance on their tariff rate — both 15%, both of which could have been worse. The White House was set to impose 30% levies on European goods as of Aug. 1.
“Both Tokyo and Brussels apparently viewed the price of a 15% tariff worth paying in light of the alternative of higher tariffs, uncertainty and counter-retaliation,” Wendy Cutler, acting U.S. trade representative in the Obama era, told Axios.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said of the EU’s deal with Trump: “I think we hit exactly the point we wanted to find — rebalance but enable trade on both sides.”
In return for that balance, Europe “gets no trade war,” Sondland said.
Trump’s deal slims the odds of U.S. consumers shunning European goods, which could have been taxed at an even higher rate.
“Without our market, very few industries would survive,” Sondland added.
Meanwhile, businessman, investor, author, and TV personality Kevin O’Leary addressed Trump’s plans for debt reduction:
Axios validates Trump talking point: Access to U.S. markets matters most added by Editor Two on
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