Mar-a-Lago now has a European subsidiary, Trump's Turnberry golf course in Scotland. Here too, the US president receives supplicants and holds press conferences with his supporting actors.

On July 27, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen was there, smiling as she swallowed the introduction of 15% tariffs on EU exports to the United States. There will be no European countermeasures. On the contrary, the list of European concessions is endless: EU countries will buy energy from the US (all fossil fuels, mainly liquefied natural gas) for $750 billion over three years, increasing annual purchases by 50% (they were $450 billion in 2024); they will buy materials for nuclear power plants; they will make industrial investments worth $600 billion in the United States – mainly in the automotive and pharmaceutical sectors – to produce overseas what is now exported; they will buy American weapons worth hundreds of billions of dollars, as part of the €800 billion European rearmament plans.

All things considered, between tariffs paid to the US Treasury and other transfers, the EU is committing to paying Trump in a few years an amount equivalent to Italy's GDP: $2.4 trillion. A Banana republic would have obtained better........

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