"Europe has sacrificed the ability to call out his violation of international treaties — such as the World Trade Organization’s requirement of the most-favoured nation principle. It has also fallen in with the idea that results are achieved through personalised bargaining between great men (and occasionally women), rather than the painstaking work of democratic deliberation and consensus building.
But note what these choices have cost Europe. It has shed all the political capital it could have mobilised to lead a coalition of countries in defence of rules-based trade and a concerted opposition to Trump. Not only that, it has betrayed its American friends, who had counted on Europe standing up to Trump while they struggled to do so themselves.
Most importantly, Europe is risking its political soul. It has put itself in a situation in which leaders cannot say publicly what they are actually trying to do. That is a recipe for distrust and a poison for democracy — and European liberal democracy in particular. How can voters endorse policies whose true nature cannot be admitted publicly (such as the promises to Trump not being real)? If the EU hypocritically accepts what economist Richard Baldwin terms the “grievance doctrine” of globalisation, how can it repel anti-European forces thriving on those views at home?"
https://www.ft.com/content/75609ba4-cc61-4556-8ca2-09381da721e9