It’s not as if Europe’s leaders can be described as outstanding figures who will be remembered for their skill, institutional integrity, or foresight. Yet it is increasingly evident that there is someone who, as a statesman, is an outright disaster, and that simply getting close to him greatly accelerates the slide toward political ruin.
This man is Donald Trump, someone who is completely uninterested in the fate of his country, the world around him, or anything that does not directly benefit him and his family. A man who knows nothing about what happens outside his very narrow circle of interest, who cannot imagine the ultimate consequences of his actions, who is damaging his own country and the rest of the world, relying on the power that his predecessors have built up over centuries and which he is using to try to impose himself inside and outside the US without any interest in understanding what his choices may mean for those outside his circle. And ultimately harming them too.
Thanks to his remarkable idea of following and supporting Israel in its reckless attack on Iran (and I repeat, it’s not as though that regime in any way deserves to exist, but that’s not the point here), the US has spent more than 11 billion dollars in the first six days alone, according to largely public estimates—without apparently denting Iran’s ability to respond, even though Trump had already declared it militarily annihilated back in June 2025. In these few days, the price of oil has risen by 20 per cent, exceeding 110 dollars per barrel, according to Goldman Sachs, as reported by Alieno Gentile, oil” could continue to rise and even exceed the 2008 peak of over $140 per barrel if energy shipments do not resume through the Strait of Hormuz, the maritime passage through which about one-fifth of the world’s oil supplies transit.”
Alieno also sums up the situation in the US, noting that “the rise in oil prices has pushed up the cost of a full tank of gasoline. For American consumers, who have been struggling for months with the rising cost of living, the blow is both heavy and twofold, because it comes on top of tariffs: despite the rhetoric, according to the Fed, 90 per cent of the tariffs were paid by Americans. And now, after the Supreme Court ruling, the tariffs will have to be refunded — but formally, the entities that had the tax withheld were the importing companies, so it is likely that the refunds will go to them, even though in practice they passed the increases downstream to consumers.”
The situation is further complicated by the slowdown in the US labour market. Last week’s data indicate a contraction in employment in February, “a sign that the labour market is weakening compared to the very robust phase that followed the pandemic,” according to Alieno.
The US president’s comment is predictable, but shameful: “We are the world’s largest oil producer, and therefore we have everything to gain from this situation,” he basically said. Perhaps, as it seems, some people in the US did — those who magically bought millions of dollars’ worth of oil just before the war broke out. Who knows how they knew the dates with such precision…
In Europe, on the other hand, we have nothing to gain, and in fact, we are paying out of our own pockets for Trump’s arrogance and the stupidity of those who supported and followed him during this first, abundant year of his presidency. Let’s not even mention the substantial support Trump is giving Russia in its invasion of Ukraine (reinforced in recent hours when the US president lifted the embargo on Moscow’s oil), which is clearly damaging to the European Union and its member states.
Those who followed Trump during his first disastrous year as president are now paying the price. He is not a visionary, nor someone who is changing the world with a triumphant nationalist, conservative, and racist vision—an economically successful model that many, such as his vassal Orbán, for example, share (and many Italians too, let’s be honest). No, he is simply a crude, small‑time businessman who knows little, understands little, and above all doesn’t care about anything that does not directly serve his own personal interests; someone who has used easy propaganda tools to gather votes, who has put forward laughable (and often illegal) economic proposals, who wields the powerful and sophisticated instruments of the United States as blunt clubs — as if someone were to grab a rifle by the barrel and beat people with it instead of using it for its intended purpose — who ignores military advice, and who has no respect for anyone’s life. He is unable to foresee the consequences of his actions as president, and he is likely even awaiting with satisfaction the terrorist attacks that will inevitably follow this phase, so that he can impose a new police crackdown on everyone who is not a ‘true American’.
And Trump is, above all, a man who causes damage, both within his own country and beyond its borders, whom our leaders would do well to isolate, in our own primary interest of not being dragged into the abyss along with him.
English version by the Translation Service of Withub
