Import tariffs on steel, you say? Fine—let’s play that game. But you do realize that Germany’s wealth has, for generations, been built on exports. The engine of its prosperity has always depended on selling things to the rest of the world, not walling them out. That stream of revenue may have diminished over the past decade, but it remains the country’s lifeblood.
And you also know what happens next: when you tax other people’s goods, they return the favor. Tariffs breed tariffs, and suddenly your exports—already wheezing—find themselves locked out of markets they once dominated. This kind of retaliation might not matter much if your exports were unique, or if you possessed overwhelming geopolitical leverage, or if your economy was just a glorified raw-materials pit. But that’s not Germany’s position, is it?
Germany has none of those levers. No monopoly on critical resources, no empire to back its arrogance, no political clout left to frighten anyone. So it will take the world’s retaliation head-on—and perhaps that’s not entirely a bad thing. Pain has a purifying quality. It burns away the illusions, the bureaucratic fog, the ideological comfort blankets. It might even force Germany to remember what once made it formidable.
But let’s be honest: the voters won’t have it. The appetite for more pain is gone, replaced by a yearning for soft promises and shorter workweeks. Decisions, decisions—none of them wise, all of them overdue.