This is CBS Eye on the World.

Here's John Batchelor.

To London, to Joseph Sternberg, a member of the editorial board of the Wall Street

Journal, he read's political economics, and his column about the EU is helpful to me because I struggle

to understand why 27 well-to-do countries with a huge population and to my understanding

right now self-satisfaction does not grow sufficiently or at all in to that, the country of Britain that used to be in the EU when it was 28 is not only not growing, it's under threat of retreating because of the tax burden necessary by labor's promises in the most recent election. We begin with the EU in general,

however. Joe, you put the question very bluntly in your column. There are 450 million people in the

European Union, and they do very well, thank you very much, and have for the last 80 years. And yet,

they're not growing. At the same time,

they punish each other with high entry costs for buying each other's products. And they don't

buy each other's products much. I mentioned to you that I have German vacuum cleaners.

They're very good. I'm not sure that Germany

buys its own manufactured goods such as a vacuum cleaner. That's not a huge item to invest in.

Why doesn't Europe shop in Europe? Good evening to you, Joe.

Hey, John. Yeah, I mean, this has been a big question because taking a step back, I mean,

so people over here have been freaking out over President Trump's tariffs and the U.S. trade war.

You know, sometimes the rates he talks about are higher for the European Union. Sometimes they're

a bit lower. It's hard to know what the policy is.

And, of course, now there's all of this uncertainty about whether he has the legal authority

to do any of this.

I mean, we know now that that question is working its way through the courts.

But I thought it was worth taking a step back and asking this question, why does Europe

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