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JD Vance stuns Munich conference with critique on European democracy
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: A Quick Take from the Munich Security Conference. Just finished with the opening speech for Vice President JD Vance. Before that, Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission. Literally standing room only across the conference. I can't remember the last time it was so busy. And so busy because so many people believe that the NATO and the transatlantic alliance are at a crossroads, are facing a time of crisis.
First, the good news. The recognition on the part of the Europeans that action on their part is urgent is pretty consistent across the board. That a 2% spend on defense is not enough, that they have to take much more of a leadership role on Ukraine. That they have to be much more competitive in terms of growth. That indeed many of the criticisms that are being levied on the Europeans by Trump, as well as by Democrats and Republicans in the United States are things they have not taken adequately seriously, and now they do.
I think the level of urgency, the recognition of crisis is true across the board. The willingness to take action is a different story. We will see that over the course of the coming months, but there's no question it is significant.
Go beyond that to what JD Vance had to say. This speech did not include a mention of Russia and Ukraine. This is a speech to the Munich Security Conference to mention separately of elections in Romania overturned by their constitutional court, politicized questions about that to be sure. But not a speech that resonated or landed well for the Europeans in the audience. They were getting a lecture on freedom of speech and democracy from the United States. They were not getting a sense of how strong and secure the alliance needed to be.
JD Vance was talking about democracy for as opposed to protecting from. The Security Conference is of course much more about protecting from. It's about what kind of external threats exist to NATO, which is the reason it exists. And to the extent that Europeans are concerned about the future of NATO, a lot of it is coming from inside the house, a European sense that the Americans are not committed to them anymore. In fact, Defense Minister of Germany, Pistorius actually yelled out during JD Vance's speech, "This is unacceptable." I've never seen anything like that from a European leader during a major US plenary here at the Munich Security Conference before coming here for about 15 years. So that was quite surprising.
Having said all of that, when the vice president met with the German federal president earlier in the day, he was much more willing to talk constructively about working together on Ukraine, especially in terms of having the Ukrainians at the table, including the Europeans. How essential it'd be for everybody to work together to ensure that the Ukrainians can be reconstructed. That they'll have security guarantees and defense.
So to a degree, what we are seeing is a speech for Vance's domestic audience in the United States, as well as some of the anti-EU Euro-skeptic populace in Europe, including the AfD, the Alternative for Deutschland, who, of course, their support is going to the polls in a couple of weeks just like the rest of this country, Germany. But still, the level of tension here is extremely high. The level of trust has been reduced. And pretty much everyone I've talked to in this conference believes that the Russians today are in a considerably stronger position than they were in 48 hours ago. The Chinese are in a stronger position than they were in 48 hours ago. And that's something pretty much nobody in this conference wants to say, wants to hear. That's it for me. I'll talk to you all real soon.
President Donald Trump and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi shake hands as they attend a joint press conference at the White House in Washington, DC, on Feb. 13, 2025.
Trump imposes tariffs, Modi brings gifts
As promised, US President Donald Trump announced reciprocal tariffs on all American trading partners Thursday afternoon. Each country will be assessed individually, factoring in value-added taxes, foreign tariff rates, industry subsidies, regulations, and currency undervaluation to determine customized duty rates. Trump claimed, “It’s gonna make our country a fortune.”
The tariff review will be completed within weeks or months and could kick-start bilateral negotiations with other countries. Trump took the occasion to reiterate that Canada should become a 51st state, chastising it for not meeting NATO spending thresholds and repeating his false claim that the US “subsidizes” Canada to the tune of $200 billion a year.
Then there’s India. Trump’s proclamation came ahead of his meeting with “total killer” Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the White House. Modi reportedly arrived bearing a “gift”: tariff reductions on India’s imports of US electronics, medical equipment, and chemicals, as well as commitments to purchase American liquefied natural gas and defense equipment.
What else does Trump want from Delhi? Trump wants to reduce the US trade deficit with India, $45.6 billion in 2024. The average US tariff rate on Indian imports is currently 2.2%, while India’s is 12% on US goods. Trump also wants India to reduce the emigration of its citizens to the US – both H-1B visa-holders working in the tech industry and undocumented migrants. India is the third largest source of undocumented immigrants in the US.
On Thursday, Trump said he would match India’s tariffs. “We are being reciprocal with India … Whatever India charges, we charge them.”
Both men agreed on Thursday to begin talks on an early trade deal to resolve the tariff standoff. Modi said he would buy more US oil, gas, and military equipment while fighting illegal immigration, and Trump said the US would ultimately sell F-35 stealth fighters to India.
Trump's call with Putin is big win for Kremlin
“We cannot afford to be reactive,” said Alina Polyakova, President and CEO of the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA), responding to the news of President Trump’s recent call with Vladimir Putin.
Trump’s conversation with Putin, which reportedly included discussions on reducing US commitments to NATO, has sent shockwaves through European security circles. Meanwhile, US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s recent remarks suggesting that Europe must take more responsibility for its defense have further fueled uncertainty among US allies.
Polyakova cautioned that authoritarian regimes are watching closely, using AI-driven disinformation and cyber warfare to exploit divisions. “The transatlantic alliance is at a crossroads,” she warned. “This is a moment where democracies must assert their leadership, not retreat.”
With European elections looming and global security tensions rising, the debate over the US commitment to its allies will remain a central issue in Munich in 2025—and one that will shape the future of Western security.
This interview, conducted by Tony Maciulis, is part of the Global Stage series at the 2025 Munich Security Conference, presented by GZERO in partnership with Microsoft.
- Putin shouldn't test NATO unity, says analyst Alina Polyakova ›
- Why Ukraine is the target of Russian aggression – analyst Alina Polyakova ›
- Putin has a “noose” around Ukraine, says Russia analyst Alina Polyakova ›
- Did Trump actually talk to Putin? ›
- The endless ends of Vladimir Putin ›
- Putin is still winning ›
- Ian Explains: Putin's Ukraine gamble ›
Linda McMahon testifies before the Senate Health, Education, and Labor Committee during a nomination hearing as Secretary of Education in Washington, DC, USA, on Feb. 13, 2025.
Education Dept’s future in question as McMahon begins confirmation process
McMahon said that she would present a plan for downsizing the department that Republican senators would be able to get on board with. She said that while there were areas of the DOE that could be eliminated, states would still receive federal funding for schools. Project 2025 has laid out a plan for moving the core responsibilities of the DOE – like civil rights enforcement, student loans, and research – to other federal agencies in order to dismantle the department without fully eliminating it, a step that would require congressional approval.
Conservatives have sought to get rid of the DOE since it was created in 1979, arguing that educational decisions should be made by the states alone. The department doesn’t control curriculums or teachers, but it does provide outsized financial support for low-income areas and helps cover the higher costs of educating students with greater needs.
Meanwhile, the Senate officially confirmed Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as health secretary in a largely party-line vote on Thursday. All Democrats opposed his nomination, while all Republicans supported it, except for Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell. McConnell, who survived polio as a child, broke with his party due to Kennedy’s anti-vaccine stance.Trump’s Empire State of Mind
Donald Trump has an empire state of mind.
From his threats to make Canada the 51st state, buy Greenland, reclaim the Panama Canal, and, almost implausibly, “take” the Gaza Strip, Trump isn’t hiding his imperial ambitions. In his inaugural address, he explicitly said he sees an America that “expands its territory.” Is he serious about this, and, if so, what does it mean for its closest neighbor and biggest partner, Canada?
Let’s start with the first question: Is territorial expansion a real threat or just rhetoric he is using to shake down opponents in trade negotiations? It’s both. Trump is using these threats to gain better access to markets for American goods, and he’s flexing his imperial desires.
No moment better illustrated Trump’s empire state of mind than on Tuesday, when he met King Abdullah II of Jordan at the White House. With Trump’s radical promise to take Gaza and “clean out that whole thing ” — choice words not lost on anyone remotely familiar with the worst crimes under international law — the meeting was expected to be about as uncomfortable for the royal as a crown of porcupine quills. But it got even more interesting than expected.
The president was asked how he would buy Gaza, as he had initially proposed. “We’re not going to have to buy,” he said. “We’re going to have Gaza. We don’t have to buy. There’s nothing to buy. We will have Gaza.”
We will have Gaza.
Pause there for a moment because that was a foundational shift in US policy. The president of the United States declared he could unilaterally pluck up pieces of land the US has no legitimate claim over in blatant violation of international law. Because the statement was so shocking, Trump was immediately asked to clarify. You won’t even buy it?
TRUMP: No reason to buy. There is nothing to buy. It’s Gaza. It’s a war-torn area. We’re going to take it. We’re going to hold it. We’re going to cherish it.
We are going to “take” it.
The next moment was the one that Canadians, Greenlanders, and Panamanians took to heart.
The king was visibly uncomfortable with what he and every Arab leader have said is a totally unacceptable idea, so he tried to deflect a confrontation, saying the Arab leaders would propose a solution, but then Trump doubled down.
“Mr. President,” a journalist asked, “take it under what authority? It is sovereign territory.”
“Under the US authority,” the president answered, as if that was enough.
This is exactly the law of the jungle we described in Eurasia Group’s 2025 Top Risks Report, where international laws and norms — the same laws and norms the US built and underpinned after World War II — are no longer enforced. Under this rule, strong countries — the United States, China, and Russia — divvy up the world into their own imperial spheres of influence. In a cogent piece this week in the Financial Times, Gideon Rachmancalled this the age of neo-imperialism, a world “based around spheres of influence — with the US concentrating on the Western Hemisphere, Russia on Eastern Europe, and China on East Asia.”
It is exactly right. This week, Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin had a long phone call during which – without input from Ukraine – they appeared to unilaterally decide the terms on which the war, which Russia started, would end. On favorable terms for Russia. How do we know? Because US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the same day while he was in Europe that Ukraine joining NATO is now off the table and that US support for Ukraine and European defense is a low priority. Putin must be popping vodka bottle tops. His war aims have been largely vindicated.
More importantly, it shores up Rachman’s thesis that Trump is reverting to the imperial spheres of influence model, where great powers gobble up land in their orbits and let other great powers, like Russia and China, do it in theirs. The empire state of mind in action.
How should Canada read this?
On his way to the Super Bowl, Trump was asked by Fox News’ Bret Baier whether taking over Canada is a real goal. “Yes it is,” Trump responded before sharing his rationale that Canada, in his view, is a leech on the American economy and military and that he believes it should be the 51st state. So, yes, he is serious about it.
Again, not to be a scold, but facts should matter here. On that day, Trump’s rationale for taking over Canada was a “$200 billion” deficit. That is wrong. According to Stats Canada, in 2023, the trade deficit was $94 billion, which includes the cheap energy Canada supplies. But to the empire state of mind, facts don’t matter. Neither does the rationale. Today, it could be about trade deficits, fentanyl, and illegal immigration, and tomorrow, it could be about banking or cars. The goalposts will shift. All that matters is what the US wants to “take.” The rest is pretext and commentary.
So how could Trump take Canada by “economic force”? Again, the president is not hiding his plan.
Step one: Weaken the Canadian economy with devastating tariffs.
The 25% tariffs on steel and aluminum will be punishing for Ontario and Quebec but not existential. That is just a start. Layer another 25% tariff on all Canadian goods crossing the border, and there will be a meltdown.
“If we stop allowing them to make cars — through tariffs and other things: cars, trucks, etc., what they make — they’re not viable as a country,” Trump told Baier in a chilling moment.
Step two: Sow divisions in Canada. By excluding energy from his threats — or by putting much lower tariffs on energy than on other goods – Trump heats up East-West tensions in Canada that have long been on a medium boil.
It also has the benefit of self-interest. The US needs Alberta energy for its Midwest refineries. Otherwise, voters there will see a price jump at the pumps. So, Trump cuts Alberta a break. The rest of Canada, meanwhile, will want to retaliate against his tariffs, and energy is a powerful weapon in the arsenal. The Alberta premier has said that is a no-go. Other leaders are not ruling it out. If – no, when – the tariffs come, the external threat of Trump will be strengthened by the internal disputes within Canada.
Step 3: Spread disinformation. Separatism has always been an issue between English-speaking provinces and French-speaking Quebec. The separatist PQ party has been steadily on the rise in Quebec, with the promise of a referendum in the near future. Fomenting that movement with more disinformation is not out of the question for a president who wants to swallow up Canada and take its minerals, water, and access to the Arctic.
These could add up to the “winning conditions” Trump needs. Does he start with an offer to let part of Canada split off and join the union? Maybe. Suddenly, Canada is in fragments and ready to be swallowed up, bite by bite.
Of course, this is all dark speculation. Annexing Canada is not just a matter of political barking any more than it was in the War of 1812, when taking Canada was supposed to be a mere matter of marching. It wasn’t then, and it won’t be today.
Former Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper was roundly celebrated by leaders of all parties when he said, “I would be prepared to impoverish the country and not be annexed, if that was the option we’re facing.” Trump’s threats have led to a dramatic spike in Canadian patriotism. Canada is gearing up for a fight it doesn’t want or need. The US is picking a fight to win a prize it already has: free and fair trade with its best friend.
The empire state of mind, however, doesn’t allow for the logic of mutual benefit. It is a radical shift in global politics and a warning to countries that once called themselves allies, neighbors, and friends.
President Donald Trump meets with Jordan's King Abdullah in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, on Feb. 11, 2025.
Israel-Hamas ceasefire may hold. Trump’s Gaza plan? Not so much
While meeting with Jordan’s King Abdullah II at the White House on Tuesday, Trump reiterated his intention to “take” Gaza, displace its two million residents to nearby countries, and turn it into the “Riviera of the Middle East.”
Middle Eastern states are set to meet in Saudi Arabia to come up with their own plan, which they will present to Trump, but Abdullah was cautious and noncommittal while in the Oval. Later, in a social media post, the king said that during his meeting with Trump he “reiterated Jordan’s steadfast position against the displacement of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank” and called this “the unified Arab position.”
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi, meanwhile, said this week that he will not visit Washington for talks on the Middle East while Trump’s Gaza displacement plan is on the agenda.
But Trump has threatened to cut off crucial US aid to Egypt and Jordan unless they comply. Cairo and Amman each receive about $1.5 billion annually in military and other aid from Washington.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford, chair of the Council of the Federation, speaks during a press conference with the premiers of Canada in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 12, 2025.
Canada’s premiers tour Washington as tariff-mania continues
Trump hit Canada and others with 25% tariffs on steel and aluminum earlier this week, a policy that’s set to take effect on March 12 after temporarily pausing 25% duties on all other Canadian imports earlier this month. Trump says the metals tariffs will be cumulative, which means some goods, such as steel and aluminum, could be hit with a whopping 50% tax.
There have been plenty of events on the premiers’ docket, including a party with North Dakota Republican Sen. Kevin Cramer and a meeting with White House deputy chief of staff for legislative affairs Jim Blair.On Tuesday, Ontario Premier Doug Ford talked to business leaders in front of the US Chamber of Commerce in DC, warning that tariffs will hurt American industry and reminding listeners that no one wins a trade war.
Will the premiers find any love? Their ultimate catch, of course, would be Trump himself – the man who can turn off the tariff taps with the stroke of a pen. Graeme Thompson, a senior analyst with Eurasia Group’s global macro-geopolitics practice, says that could be possible, but it may come at a cost.
“I think a permanent reprieve or exemption will come as part of a finalized USMCA negotiation,” says Thompson. “Everything right now is merely the prelude to that. The big question to my mind is what Ottawa will have to concede to get that deal.”
Can Canada quit the United States?
On Monday, President Donald Trump promised to hit Canada and other countries with 25% tariffs on steel and aluminum. The tax is set to come into effect on March 12, the same day Trump’s 30-day pause on across-the-board tariffs against Canada lifts.
As the US’ biggest source of aluminum and one of its top sources of steel, Canada stands to be hurt more than any other country by the president’s new metals tariffs. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his government are rushing to find ways to wriggle out from under the tariffs, but a national discussion is also underway to find ways to diversify the country’s trade relationships and to protect the economy from what’s seen as an increasingly unreliable partner: the United States.
To get a sense of what Canada could do to fight back against US tariffs, while developing a long-term plan to build economic resilience, GZERO’s David Moscrop spoke to economist Kevin Milligan, director of the Vancouver School of Economics at the University of British Columbia. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
David Moscrop: How productive would Canadian counter-tariffs be against the US?
Kevin Milligan: The US economy is 10 times the size of ours. I've heard politicians and some others talking about dollar-for-dollar retaliation. The problem with that is our dollars don’t go very far when we put tariffs on their goods. To give an example, imagine we were to do one of the products that Canada loves to think about, like Harley-Davidson motorcycles from Wisconsin. Imagine we put a big tariff on them, and the sales to Canada dropped by half. What share of Harley-Davidson’s business overall comes from sales to Canada? Like 5% or something like that? Maybe, maybe 10%. So they’re losing a couple of percent off of their overall sales. They’re not going to be happy, but it’s not going to devastate them. In contrast, there are many businesses in Canada that sell almost everything they make to the US. When they’re faced with a big tariff, they will lose substantial sales, and it’s not going to be a couple of points off the top. It’s going to be existential to them. So that’s where the magnitude is different.
When we tariff US goods coming into Canada, that means that the cost of those goods coming into Canada goes up for Canadian consumers. And so we will be putting taxes on ourselves to make a small change to Harley-Davidson or whatever we tariff. So that’s where the counter-tariff is not something that I think will be super effective. It’s not to say we don’t do it. We have to strike back. This is an attack on our sovereignty, on our economy, and so we have to strike back and strike back hard. I’m just not sure that broad counter-tariffs are the way to go.
What about something like export controls on critical minerals or energy?
This is most easily understood in the context of oil. I’m not suggesting we do it for oil — there are a lot of political tensions within Canada when it comes to oil — but it is very tangible to think about this. Imagine the oil industry got together with the government and agreed that we’d purposely throttle both production and exports to the US. So, instead of 100 barrels a day, we’re now going to export only 50 barrels a day. If we did that, what happens? There are fewer barrels, and there are lots of people bidding for them, so the price goes up. The government doesn’t get the revenue. The industry keeps the revenue. They’re going to get less than they would’ve if they sold the full 100 barrels, but the revenue goes directly to the producers, which is better than washing it through a government program.
So you don’t have to worry about export taxes or anything else. You just do a curtailment in conjunction with the industry — though the government may have to organize that — but that just keeps the revenue in Canada by shrinking the amount of oil we export.
Trump’s threats have Canada talking about removing barriers that keep goods from flowing east to west within Canada. But breaking down internal trade barriers, primarily regulatory barriers, is tougher than people think. What are those barriers, and why are they so persistent?
There has been a lot of talk now and before, but especially now, on interprovincial barriers to trade. These aren’t like tariffs where if you buy something from Saskatchewan and you’re in Alberta, you have to pay some big tax. These are mostly regulations. And the thing about regulations is it’s kind of hard to tell sometimes which are really important regulations that keep us safe and which ones are designed for feather-bedding for some interest group.
When you dig in, what does it mean to have uniform standards across the country? The thing is that provinces are different. There’s a reason we have different regulations and different provinces. In British Columbia, we have these mountain highways where it really matters if you have snow tires. It really matters if your truck is too long and can’t snake through a mountain pass. In contrast, if you are from Saskatchewan or PEI carting a big load of potatoes, it’s a different set of regulations you need to worry about. Can you clean the truck so the potato worm doesn’t get in or out of a province? That’s a big deal In PEI, but it’s maybe less of a deal in other provinces.
One way to go forward on that is to have a mutual recognition system that if you’re licensed in one province, then other provinces will recognize that. So there’s kind of like a minimum standard that everyone has to meet. And then if a province wants to have special rules for mountain highways or potato bugs, you can do that. The challenge there is defining that minimum standard, which means 10 provincial governments, maybe three territorial governments, and the federal government all sitting around and figuring out what the minimum national standards need to be for tire size and snow chains.
What about external trade diversification? It’s easy to talk about more trade with Europe, South America, or China. It’s harder to do it. Why doesn’t Canada trade more with countries other than the US?
There are a couple of reasons for this. One is that economists have something we call the gravity model of trade, where the geographic distance between countries is a really good predictor of who trades with whom. One aspect of it is transportation costs. Another aspect of it is culture, language, legal similarities, and things like that. Personal ties. It makes it easier to trade when you have kinds of business contacts that are easier to make — when there are cultural, linguistic, and personal ties.
Thinking tangibly, I mean, we are not building a pipeline to Italy for oil, right? We’re building it to Cushing, Oklahoma, where they trade all the oil. That’s a geography constraint. We can ship oil to the coast and put it on the ships, but that gets prohibitively expensive for providing oil to Italians versus wherever they might get it already, so that’s it. The trade costs are going to be a big reason for why our trade is the way it is.
If we want to diversify, I think it’s a good goal. We have an unreliable economic and political partner to the south of us. This is a big deal. This is a hugely important deal. We want to make sure that we decrease our reliance on them. I’m fully on board with that strategy, but we have to be a bit modest in what we think we can get out of that because, at the end of the day, our oil is almost surely going to be going to the US.
Are we so dependent on north-south trade that we just have to find a way to manage this relationship no matter what it might be?
I think that’s the core truth of this. We’re not putting up a big wall at the border and not trading with the US. That would be immiserating for us. What the president says I guess is true: They don’t literally need our oil, our cars, our software, or whatever we might want to trade with them; they can get along without it. But boy, they’d be paying a lot more for it from other sources. We can offer them cheaper stuff they can get elsewhere. At the end of the day, this is about managing what all of this looks like going forward. We have to be extraordinarily wary of signed agreements and giving up stuff for a signature. I’m very wary of that because that signature has shown to be worth zero. This is an amazing choice that the American government is making and giving up all of its international credibility. But even nations at war will trade with each other because there’s just a fundamental economic logic that when something is way cheaper brought in from abroad, that just is better for everyone to allow those trades to happen.
Would a Canada-first industrial strategy be a non-trade measure we could consider?
It definitely could be. You can think about industrial strategy as, say, subsidizing a pipeline. That’s industrial strategy. We’ve had a battery strategy over the past few years for EVs. I’m not quite sure where that sits now, but these are big bets that we could take. I’d be most keen on ones that involve public infrastructure for export. That could be actual tangible infrastructure. It doesn’t necessarily mean pipelines. It might mean improving our ports and things like that. But also intangible infrastructure like our trade missions abroad, like export encouragement for services and electronic services and software and apps and all of those good things that are way easier to trade across borders that don’t really matter as much for geography.
How much, if any, of the Canadian strategy should be waiting Trump out, hoping that Americans feel the pain – like with steel and aluminum tariffs, which are going to be expensive for US consumers — and say, “OK, enough, we need to change this, drop the tariffs”? Or how much of this is about just waiting for someone better the next time around?
You can think of 2016 as an accident. I don’t know that we can think of electing Mr. Trump twice as an accident. I think this is a permanent state of affairs. I think we have to think about it that way. But an important element of your question is: “What strategy should we have?” I think that we should be upfront and ask whether we should do dollar-for-dollar tariffs. For those who support that, we need to ask, what is your strategy of action? What do you expect that to bring us? I don’t think it will bring people what they think. We need to think of strategies that will put pressure on the White House right now. I don’t think that is decreasing Harley-Davidson sales by 1%.
I think there are other measures we should look at. It can be trade measures. There are things that we have that are very rare in the US, that will mess up their production. Aluminum is one of them, and they just self-owned on that. Those are things we should focus on.
We should also be very open to nontariff barriers. What I mean by that is rather than throwing a tariff on US goods, which again could be part of the mix, we could talk about intellectual property reforms. I’ve heard people talk about not allowing US coal to be exported through BC. There are a ton of nontariff measures, regulatory measures, and other things we could do. There could be diplomatic measures. We could expel diplomats. I’ve seen people talk about not allowing the US ambassador to be sworn in. We could shut off electricity to New England for 24 hours.
Maybe some of these would work, and maybe some would not. But being creative and finding things that cause pain to the US is the point, while minimizing pain to us.
An important element of strategy here is to understand we are not in a regular old tit-for-tat trade war. Too many people are thinking of it on that small playing field. This is a much broader thing. Certainly, Mr. Trump thinks about it as a much broader thing, and I’m mystified that so many Canadian pundits — the Canadians themselves, I think, get it — are still thinking, “Oh, what tariffs should we put on them to counter their tariffs?” Tariffs are just a tactic in a broader strategy from Mr. Trump. It should be the same for us.