Europeans on Trump Trade Deal: He Nailed Us

The National Review ^ | July 28, 2025 | MICHAEL BRENDAN DOUGHERTY

[Mr. Mojo]

These are very early days, and there are good reasons to be skeptical of any public statements made by elected officials, diplomats, and other trained liars. But Trump announced his trade deal with the Europeans, the largest features of which are agreements to purchase American energy and arms. Those are major investments. A lesser component was the opening of European markets to more American goods at lower tariffs than what European goods will face coming here. Jim Geraghty uses cars to helpfully illustrate one problem for American manufacturers for breaking into the European market. Europe’s regulatory environment and lifestyle just preclude products made to fit America’s less-regulated environment and living-large lifestyle.

One thing I’ve noticed, though, is a lot of European statements saying that Trump got the better of them:

There is no hiding the fact the EU was rolled over by the Trump juggernaut, said one ambassador. "Trump worked out exactly where our pain threshold is." - The Financial Times

The ‘capitulation’ narrative on the U.S./EU deal is correct. EU exporters now have 15% tariffs where the previous average was ~5%, save for some protected sectors, plus massive commitments to buy American… while American exports are apparently treated/tariffed exactly as before. - Gavan Reilly, former Irish ambassador to the United States.

[crz]

Weiler isnt experienced in forestry equipment.

Now, if they go back and rehire the original people from Fabtek and begin from there, then they might have a chance.

Cat ended up with Fabtek and basically screwed it up. That is how Cat has operated in that product line. Get into the product untill large equipment for mining, etc, takes off again and then abandon the product line and try to cash out.

All Cat had to do was put their engines into Fabtek equipment, finance the development and equipment purchases and let Fabtek run.

They didnt do that.

[crz]

If Weiler REALLY, REALLY, REALLY wanted to get way ahead of the curve, they’d copy the old Johnn Deere 703 product line and put on Ponsse H8 heads onto that machine or something similar.

The old 703G MHs

Then sell it for around 4 to 500 grand.

As far as forwarders. Take the old 546 and 8s Fabtek forwarders, do away with the hydrostatic drives and put the Funk transmissions back in. Solve the back boggie mount problem and sell them for about 100 to 200 thousand dollars. Hell, even start making the 344s and sell them for 80 to 100 grand in limited production.

Weiland would take over the CTL product business.

They wont do that though. Because they are in it for the short term.