Paper accepted on 15 December 2025
https://doi.org/10.18485/sres.2025.4.2.1
ABSTRACT: Quite a few European journalists and analysts currently believe that the European Union is in a vassal relationship with the United States. This relationship has become more visible since Donald Trump, an admirer of the Gilded Age of the United States and President William McKinley from the late 1800s and early 1900s, was elected President of the United States. Trump aspires, with the help of tech industry magnates, to initiate a new Gilded Age and maintain American global leadership. The European Union is subordinate to America for several reasons. The American federal constitutional order and the single market are more efficient than the still politically divided and institutionally inefficient European Union. The United States has achieved a decisive advantage in new technologies, which allows it economic dominance and increased profitability. A larger federal budget, in turn, enables significant investments in the military industry. It is, therefore, unsurprising that European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen failed to respond to the 15% increase in tariffs on European goods imported into the US. A militarily and geo-strategically powerless Europe is hardly a decisive actor in resolving the war that has erupted on its soil between Russia and Ukraine.
KEY WORDS: Gilded Age, United States of America, federal constitutional order, tech industry magnates, tariffs, geostrategic subordination of the European Union.
