Almost a year ago I wrote about what I then considered a worrying setback for Europe: the transition from a European Union that aspired to become an autonomous global actor to a Europe increasingly dependent on the United States. It was not about questioning the transatlantic alliance, nor much less about defending a Europe opposed to Washington. It was something much simpler: to warn that an alliance between equals ceases to be so when one of the partners systematically accepts the conditions of the other for fear of the consequences of saying no.
Then it might have seemed like an exaggeration. A year later, the issue is back on the table. And this time there is a particularly uncomfortable example for Europe: Canada.
The Government of Mark Carney has just rejected an agreement with the United States that it considered harmful to Canadian interests. The negotiations have failed and Washington has imposed new tariffs of 50 percent on certain Canadian products. Ottawa has announced that it will respond with equivalent measures. Not because Canada believes that a trade war is desirable nor because it thinks that confronting the United States will not have consequences but precisely because it knows that it will.
There lies the issue. Canada depends much more on the United States than the European Union. Its economy is extraordinarily integrated with the North American one and a much larger proportion of its exports are destined for the United States. If anyone has reasons to think twice before confronting Trump, it is Canada, and yet Carney has decided that there are certain interests that justify assuming an economic cost.
The mirror of Europe
The comparison with Europe is inevitable. A year ago, Donald Trump and Ursula von der Leyen reached an agreement in Turnberry, Scotland, which was subsequently reflected in the joint declaration of August 2025. Since July 1 of this year, the agreement has been formally in effect. For the majority of European exports to the United States, a tariff ceiling of 15 percent was established, while the European Union eliminated tariffs on U.S. industrial products and opened greater access to certain agri-food products.
The European Commission presented the agreement as an instrument of stability and predictability. It would be absurd to deny that avoiding a tariff escalation has advantages: a trade war between the two largest economies in the Western space would have significant costs for European companies, workers, and consumers. But one thing is to avoid a trade war and another very different thing is to accept that the transatlantic relationship operates permanently according to a logic in which Washington pressures and Europe adapts.
Because the problem is not only the 15 percent. It is what that 15 percent represents.
The European agreement was reached after extraordinarily intense U.S. pressure and in a context in which Europe needed to maintain its relationship with Washington intact for economic, energy, and, above all, security reasons. The Union obtained stability, yes, but it also made significant concessions. And the situation of sectors such as steel and aluminum, subjected to U.S. tariffs of 50 percent, remains pending, while Brussels has suspended its own retaliatory measures.
Yielding to Trump has not served to end Trump's pressures. On the contrary: the threats have continued, the demands as well, and the logic of the relationship has not changed: Washington pressures and Europe seeks a way to accommodate.
An uncontested power
The question, therefore, is not whether Europe should have provoked a trade war. The question is another: is it using all its negotiating power or has it accepted too soon that resisting is not worth it?
The response requires first recognizing an uncomfortable reality: Europe has power, but it also has weaknesses. The European Union is not the uncontested economic power that some discourses seem to describe. It has very serious problems: deindustrialization, lack of investment, technological dependence in strategic sectors, demographic aging, high debt in several member states, and still insufficient military capacity. The war in Ukraine has also highlighted to what extent Europe continues to depend on the United States for certain essential elements of its security.
But recognizing those weaknesses does not mean denying European strengths. The Union remains one of the largest markets in the world. It has a regulatory capacity that affects companies all over the planet. It has fundamental industries in strategic sectors, an internationally significant currency, enormous commercial and financial capacity, and a market of more than 400 million consumers. And, above all, it has something that Canada does not have to the same extent: the possibility of collectively using an economic power of continental dimensions.
The problem is that having power and being willing to use it are not the same thing. It is also not about imagining that Europe can confront the United States without paying any price. To say that it has no cost would be naive. For Europe, it would mean facing possible trade reprisals, difficulties for certain exporting companies, higher costs for consumers and industrial sectors, and, in strategic terms, a more complicated relationship with the main guarantor of its security.
But precisely for that reason, the question must be posed in political terms and not sentimental ones. Prudence consists of accepting a cost when doing so protects a greater interest; docility is accepting imposition because we are afraid of the cost of resisting. Europe has been confusing both things for too long.
The cost of the slam
Canada is now demonstrating that saying no is not free either. Carney has not promised Canadians that facing the United States will be painless. On the contrary: he has warned of the costs and has prepared measures to protect the affected sectors. But he has raised a fundamental idea: preserving independence and the ability to decide about one's own future may justify assuming an economic cost, because the alternative - accepting certain impositions - may be even more harmful in the long run.
Canada also does not intend to live on the sidelines of the United States. It is trying to reduce its dependence, seek new markets, and strengthen its own economic capacity. It is not breaking with Washington. It is trying to ensure that its relationship with Washington does not solely determine the limits of its economic policy.
And that is perhaps the main lesson that Europe should draw. It is not about breaking with the United States; that would be absurd. Washington is an indispensable ally and a fundamental economy for Europe. It is also not about automatically responding to every tariff with another tariff, nor about turning every provocation or imposition into a succession of gestures of national pride. It is about something much more serious: firmly maintaining our interests and, above all, reducing the dependencies that limit our decision-making capacity.
Europe needs more industry, more investment, more technology of its own, and more defense capacity. It needs to diversify its markets and its energy sources. It needs to use its trade instruments with greater determination when its essential interests are at stake. And it needs to establish in advance what concessions it is willing to accept and which it is not. That is strategic autonomy.
For years we talked about it as if it were an academic concept. The European Union came to define it as the ability to cooperate with our partners when possible and act autonomously when necessary. It was a sensible idea: not breaking with the United States, but stopping dependence on the United States. But what credibility does that autonomy have if in the face of every pressure from Washington the European response consists of seeking the least uncomfortable formula to accept?
Part of the answer is, without a doubt, in our own institutional weaknesses. The Union is not a State and needs to reconcile the interests of twenty-seven governments. Part is also in fear: the war in Ukraine has reinforced military dependence on the United States. And part comes from a conception of power that Europe does not seem to have updated.
For decades we got used to thinking that rules, institutions, law, and consensus were enough to order the world. It was a magnificent idea as long as others were willing to play by the same rules.
But the world has changed. The United States is increasingly using its economic power as a tool of pressure. China combines trade, technology, industry, and political power. Other powers use energy resources, markets, and strategic positions to defend their interests. And Europe continues to speak too many times as if we were still in that world where the common interest should prevail over the logic of power.
The capacity to decide
This is not about turning Europe into another China or another United States. It is simply about it ceasing to be one of the few great powers that seem ashamed to act as such.
That is why the Canadian case is so important, not because Canada is more powerful than Europe - it is not - nor because its economy is in better shape to withstand a trade war, nor because confronting the United States is always the right answer. Obviously, it is not.
It is important because it has understood something elementary: a power is not defined solely by the resources it possesses, but also by the lines it is willing to defend and the price it is willing to pay to defend them.
Europe does not need to imitate Canada in everything. It needs to regain the ability to say no when its fundamental interests demand it. But, for that, it is not enough to approve new documents on strategic autonomy, economic sovereignty, or technological independence. It is necessary to build the capacities that allow making them a reality. It is necessary to invest, produce, innovate, diversify, and defend itself. And, when the next pressure comes, to use European economic power instead of merely lamenting that others use it against us.
The agreement with the United States does not have to be undone. But it should not become the beginning of a permanent policy of concessions either. An agreement serves to stabilize a relationship; not to renounce the ability to negotiate the next one.
Because that is, ultimately, the true European problem. Not that the United States is powerful. Not that Trump pressures. Not that saying no has no consequences. The problem is that Europe runs the risk of having forgotten that it can also say no. Canada has just reminded it.