For Europeans, the second Trump presidency didn’t take long to live down to our worst fears. Vice President JD Vance’s speech at the Munich Security Conference in February signaled an American approach increasingly hostile to Europe’s core economic and cultural values. This was followed by President Donald Trump’s assertion that the European Union was actually formed to “screw” the U.S.

In this context, Washington’s changing tariff policy has been met by deliberate patience, and near silence, in Brussels. Because if there’s one thing the EU does well — it’s detangling short-term political bluster from much longer-term policy objectives.