BRUSSELS \u2014 If Europe wants to avoid a trade war with Donald Trump, it has to buy more from the U.S., boost defense budgets and deregulate to make the EU economy stronger, Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani told POLITICO.<\/p>\n
Tajani argues there’s a deal to be made with the transactional U.S. president, recalling that\u00a0he met Trump in 2017\u00a0when he was president of the European Parliament. \u201cHe was much more pragmatic than one could think,\u201d said Tajani.<\/p>\n
Trump is threatening to hammer America’s rivals as well as its allies \u2014 ranging from Canada and Mexico to Colombia and Denmark \u2014 with tariffs to get them to fall in line with his demands. One way to dodge that bullet is to create “a virtuous climate” by purchasing more goods from the U.S., the Italian minister said.<\/p>\n
One of Trump’s perennial beefs is that the EU has a trade surplus with the U.S.<\/p>\n
Trump in the White House is a “wake-up call” for Europe on everything from trade to defense, Tajani said.<\/p>\n
The problem for Rome is that it doesn’t have much credibility on military spending \u2014 a key metric for Trump,\u00a0who has repeatedly threatened not to defend\u00a0countries he feels are free-riding on the U.S.<\/p>\n
Italy is spending 1.57 percent of GDP on defense, one of the lowest levels in NATO and well below the alliance target of at least 2 percent.<\/p>\n
And that target set in 2014 will almost certainly be boosted later this year. Trump\u00a0wants it to rise\u00a0to 5 percent, a figure supported by\u00a0Poland, Estonia and Lithuania. NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte\u00a0has said\u00a0the new goal will be \u201cnorth of 3 percent.\u201d<\/p>\n
That’s not good news for Italy, which aims to reach 2 percent in 2028.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m in favor of spending 2 percent, but you must not force me to cut health care,\u201d said Tajani, adding: “First we get to 2, then we talk about 3.”<\/p>\n
To spend more, Rome will need help from Brussels.<\/p>\n
Italy wants the EU to exclude defense spending from the\u00a0Stability\u00a0and\u00a0Growth\u00a0Pact,\u00a0which limits public debt to 60 percent of GDP and deficits to 3 percent. Italy meets neither marker. Its deficit\u00a0is expected to fall below 3 percent only in 2026, and debt is expected to be 139 percent by that year.<\/p>\n
Another way of boosting defense spending is to use EU resources. The bloc could use unspent cash from the \u20ac800 billion Covid recovery fund for defense, or issue joint debt \u2014 an idea Germany and other frugal countries oppose.<\/p>\n
Tajani also mentioned using the European Stability Mechanism, a tool with a maximum lending capacity of\u00a0\u20ac500 billion\u00a0that eurozone governments created during the 2011-2012 euro crisis to support member countries.<\/p>\n
Despite lagging on defense, Italy has access to Trump thanks to PM Giorgia Meloni, the only European leader\u00a0invited to his Jan. 20 inauguration.<\/p>\n
Tajani has already spoken to new U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio.<\/p>\n
They discussed Ukraine, with Tajani saying Rubio insisted the U.S. “won’t give up on Ukraine.\u201d Tajani also said the U.S. “must be present in Africa, in the Mediterranean.”<\/p>\n
Tajani downplayed the risk that Trump will follow through on his threats to\u00a0seize Greenland\u00a0from Denmark.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don’t think Trump will invade Greenland,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
But the main takeaway from the new Trump era is that Europe must do more to stand up for itself, Tajani said. “We must accelerate a path to be stronger and complete the banking union, the single energy market, fiscal harmonization, European defense.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cEurope must not be strong only in imposing rules, it must be strong politically and economically,” he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BRUSSELS \u2014 If Europe wants to avoid a trade war with Donald Trump, it has to buy more from the U.S., boost defense budgets and deregulate to make the EU economy stronger, Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani told POLITICO. Tajani argues there’s a deal to be made with the transactional U.S. president, recalling that\u00a0he met […]","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-131024","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comunicati"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.esteri.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131024","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.esteri.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.esteri.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.esteri.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.esteri.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=131024"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.esteri.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131024\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":131028,"href":"https:\/\/www.esteri.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131024\/revisions\/131028"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.esteri.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=131024"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.esteri.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=131024"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.esteri.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=131024"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}