Three days ago, in Glasgow, Donald Trump and Ursula von der Leyen signed an agreement officially sanctioning the introduction of 15% duties on a large part of European goods destined for the United States. For Europe, this is a bitter pill. But it is also, in all likelihood, the best possible outcome, given the negotiating position the Union finds itself in today. The agreement was immediately branded as a surrender, a capitulation, and from that moment on, a new wave of systematic denigration of the European Community began – with the inevitability of an automatism, a chorus of accusations and sarcasm that seems to find nourishment precisely in the taste for despising what has never really been tried to build.

This reaction, a mixture of defeatism and cynical complacency, has a name that changes with the times and fashions, but today it could be called ‘opportunist sovereignty’. It is the recurring temptation, very present in Italy and elsewhere, to lash out at Brussels to cover up structural deficiencies, or worse, to ride popular discontent in the name of a national pride that never produces solutions. Yet, behind the propaganda, there is a reality that deserves to be looked at in the face.

The agreement is not a victory, but it is the best possible compromise, as economist Carlo Alberto Carnevale Maffè, professor at Bocconi, explains. It is an agreement similar in form and substance to those that the United States has already signed or is negotiating with strategic allies such as Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. In some passages – for instance in the transitional management of certain sectoral duties – it is even more favourable.

According to data compiled by Macrobond and PSC Economics and relayed by Carnevale Maffè, only 17.7% of the duty burden will actually be absorbed by European exporters. The remainder, over 80%, will be borne by American importers and consumers.

For Italy, which expects around USD 75 billion in exports to the US in 2025, the impact will be quantifiable in about EUR 1.7 billion of margin compression, with more limited effects in the less exposed and not immediately replaceable sectors, such as high-end manufacturing. In the steel and aluminium sector, where Italian exports are worth about $750 million annually, the expected loss is limited to $66 million: a localised, non-systemic damage.

But what is really worrying – and what Carnevale Maffè has captured well – is not the direct damage, but the systemic one. The violation of international rules, the erosion of WTO reliability, the unilateral questioning of multilateral understandings, all this generates instability, mistrust, a slowdown in investment and chronic uncertainty, especially for a continent – ours – that bases its prosperity on global trade and the rule of law.

And so we return to the basic question, the one that many struggle to ask themselves sincerely: who, today, would have done better than Ursula von der Leyen? Who could have achieved more, with what levers, with what real power? The answer, for those familiar with the actual workings of international relations, is painful but clear: no one.

Because Europe, today, is a potential power. It has no common army, no shared nuclear force. It has no truly integrated financial market, no credible ‘safe asset’ to rival US Treasuries. It has no unified taxation, no coherent foreign policy. It has a partial single market, a monetary union with no political pillars, a defence that still depends heavily on the US umbrella. It is difficult to think of getting equal treatment if you come to the table with the profile of a tenant and not a landlord.

Luigi Marattin, secretary of the Liberal Democratic Party, wrote this honestly in a reflection circulated in recent days: Donald Trump is perhaps the worst misfortune that has befallen the West in recent decades, but he is the president of the United States, and we will have to reckon with him until 2028. To think that Europe could respond with a ‘hard fist’, ‘brigand-and-a-half’ policy is a romantic illusion. We do not have levers similar to China’s on rare earths. We have not yet built an energy autonomy worthy of the name – not least because of the ideological rejection of nuclear power. And, above all, we have not made the necessary choices to equip ourselves with real negotiating tools.

Therefore, if the Glasgow agreement is a bitter compromise, it is also the only reasonable one in the given situation. The alternative was escalation, trade war, the rupture of economic relations on which Europe depends much more than the United States. In this sense, Ursula von der Leyen did what she could, and probably better than many others would have done. She stalled, defended the most exposed sectors, ensured that at least the multilateral framework was not completely dismantled.

And if we want to draw a lesson from this, we should start here. One of the paradoxical – and perhaps beneficial – consequences of the agreement is the European renunciation of the web tax. Another humiliation, many will say. But perhaps more than a defeat, it can be a wake-up call: without European digital giants, without massive technological innovation, Europe will never be able to sit as an equal at the global power table. Giving up the web tax is not a favour to the US: it is a mirror of our shortcomings, and should become the stimulus to really build a European digital ecosystem, with public and private investments in AI, semiconductors, cloud, cyber defence, data economy.

After all, Mario Draghi has been urging us for some time to stop imposing ‘self-restraints’ on ourselves, i.e. bureaucratic, regulatory or fiscal constraints that hamper the competitiveness of European companies much more than external pressures do. In such a challenging international context, continuing to complicate life for ourselves is a luxury we can no longer afford.

Likewise, European industrial policy can no longer ignore the issue of demography and immigration. Without young people, without workers, without intelligent talent attraction and integration strategies, Europe will age and contract, losing weight and voice. We do not only need duties and subsidies: we need vision and courage. We need institutions capable of planning and financing the demographic growth and social regeneration of the continent.

In the end, everything holds together: defence, economy, innovation, population, institutions. Europe can only become a protagonist of history again if it decides, once and for all, to become an adult. To stop complaining, to stop dividing the blame, and to finally build the instruments of its own power. The time to do this is now. Because in 2035, when we will perhaps renegotiate these terms, we can either present ourselves as a strong and sovereign Union, or as a tired and quarrelsome collection of small countries in decline.

Von der Leyen did what he could, with the powers he has and the little institutional legitimacy we grant the EU Commission presidency today. The rest is – as of today – up to us, to the Europe we would like to build or not to build.