EU USA

Presidents since Ronald Reagan have encouraged Europe to build up their own defense so they would not have to depend so much on the US but nothing changed until Trump demanded that NATO countries, spend at least 2% of their GDP on defense. He followed this up with threats to reduce US military expenditures and now the European Union countries are gearing up to increase their defense spending. New plans from the European Union to increase defense spending could potentially mobilize as much as 800 billion euros ($841 billion), European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Tuesday. This is comparable to what the US spends and will allow the US to spend less which will help with the deficit. While doing this the US is also demanding that the EU countries reduce the unfairness of the $235 billion dollar trade deficit. The US is also asking the EU to pick up more of the cost of world organizations like the UN. Europe is not happy with this especially since their economies are suffering from the loss of cheap energy caused by the Ukraine War. It is to the advantage of both Europe and the US to maintain good relations but it must not be one sided. One area to start, is with Trumps plan that tariffs be fair. If the tariffs are the same then they can be eliminated altogether.