I'm John Batson with Judy Dempsey in Berlin. She's with the Carnegie Endowment for International

Peace, a senior scholar. And the measure of Donald Trump, what he means, what he says, what deadlines mean,

all of that is important in the United States for our partisan decision-making.

But in Europe, it is enormously overwhelming because they have no natural reach to some of the

metaphors that the President is using and some of the conduct is so outside the box that

Europe has left dumbfounded.

So I want to measure right now, Judy, the latest from the president has to do with concessions to China,

large concessions, numbered this morning, including very high-level chipmaking by NVIDIA,

traded into China, something that was a no-go just a month ago.

How is Europe measuring Donald Trump these days? You know that we have the joke called the Taco Trade. Trump always chickens out. Does Europe joke about that? Do they understand what we

mean when we say it? And I mean we. We mean markets. Wall Street

says Taco, not just a commentator. The Europeans have two problems in dealing with not just the

Trump administration, but any US administration.

The Europeans love to be liked by US administrations.

And in doing so, it confirms their kind of dependence on the US for all sorts of things, for trade, for energy, for the security umbrella.

But on the other side, there's a European reflex that when it was former President Joe Biden

or now President Trump, when they criticize Europe, the Europeans rant and

this is terrible what the Americans are saying about us. And what really shows is, one, that the Europeans

don't like criticism. Two, that what Trump says and what Biden has said in the past about

defense spending, it has some elements of truth. And thirdly,

Europe is afraid. Europe lacks ambition. Europe doesn't use its huge competitive edge,

its trade strengths and other issues to actually stand up and be counted instead of all complaining and ranting about

...