I spent nearly four weeks in Europe this spring, where my company serves central European and Nordic clients. To be exact, I spent 26 days in eight cities and four countries—and to say that doing business in Europe is challenging right now is an understatement. It may be the toughest time in 70 years to try and garner Euro customers due to the current geopolitical atmosphere.
There has long been a need for the U.S. to level the playing field with much of the world on trade, including Europe. It’s been out of whack for decades, to varying degrees. From the trenches, though, it seems that the current, endless sledgehammer approach is having mixed results, at best. It’s been noticeable during business meetings in Stockholm, Vienna, Katowice (Poland) and elsewhere. Spending time walking in these cities in a suit as a businessman, the trade war takes on a whole different vibe. You hear the conversations and see the headlines (even if you can’t read them). The same universal words come up—like “tariffs,” “the U.S.,” etc.
I witnessed—daily—the lack of U.S. products on the market there (although KFC, McDonald’s, Coke and a few other big ones still have a strong presence). There are few U.S. trucks or cars on the streets. A Dodge Challenger is more exotic in Warsaw than a Porsche 911 or the 7 Series BMWs that go screaming by every minute or two. A Corvette parked over there on the street gets an endless stream people stopping to look and take selfies with it—not so much with the Maserati or McLaren. Go figure. A friend and client in Stockholm is the envy of all of his middle-aged friends with his 2017 Dodge Charger Hellcat, one of 15 in all of Sweden! The point is that, yes, Europe and other countries should buy our quality stuff, like we repeatedly buy theirs. The trade imbalance has been going on since I was a kid. It just keeps getting more imbalanced.
That said, there are numerous nuances to doing international business from Nevada now (or any U.S. zip code, for that matter), and the ever-changing U.S. position is a daily game of whack-a-mole. The definitions of partners, dominions and friends has shifted like a tectonic plate in recent weeks. The whole macro position on tariffs has thrown much of the baby out with the bathwater, in my micro-perspective. As an international businessman trying to woo international companies to invest in the great USA, I can see that we are inarguably the greatest and toughest free market in the world … still. There are many things about doing business over there that most U.S.-centric business executives and founders don’t know. The only way you would know is to engage in international business or international civics. That is something I had to study when entering new countries and foreign markets in those countries.
We have to know the political situation in a new foreign market. We have to try to know the history—both recent and extended—to understand why a country may be conservative in business, but liberal in politics, or conservative in faith and religion, while social norms may be more left-leaning. In some countries, those biases on both sides are still a carryover from socialistic times that only ended 30 years ago, upon the dissolution of the Soviet Union. I must keep reminding myself of that while in Bratislava, Slovakia; Vilnius, Lithuania; or Warsaw—it’s amazing that these democracies and free-market models are only approximately three decades old. It’s also amazing, actually, how far these nations have transcended into relatively wealthy, free societies. All of these countries, regions and voivodeships bare the biases and dispositions of the city, people, history, reforms, economy, etc.—all smashed together to frame their respective views of the world and the U.S.
There are many respected leaders here in the U.S. who are in favor of “U.S. first” policies, but see the tariffs and rhetoric as a setback for the U.S. world leadership position, which could have lasting effects for decades to come. Jamie Dimon, the CEO of the largest bank in the U.S., stated in his annual report to shareholders that he is concerned how the tariffs will affect long-term economic alliances. Those alliances have given the U.S. “extraordinary standing in world affairs,” Dimon said. He also stated that economics is the long-time glue, and that “America-first is fine, as long as it doesn’t end up being America alone.”
Other influential, conservative U.S. leaders have also expressed concern that the tariff policies, if they persist, could cause potential long-term harm to the U.S., including Larry Fink of Blackrock capital, and Pershing Square Capital Management’s Bill Ackman.
The U.S. needed to begin home-sourcing years ago; factories and refineries can’t be built or adapted in 90 or 180 days just because of the instant tariffs. I’m working with a company that is seriously looking to process rare earth materials for electric-vehicle batteries here in the U.S., but it’ll take three years just to get the refinery built and running. The tariffs certainly don’t benefit the long game of building the infrastructure to manufacture all we need here. While bringing jobs and capital back to the U.S. is generally really good for the U.S., we can’t magically make phones, batteries and car parts here in 2025 or 2026. In many cases, it won’t be until the next administration that all of this would manifest itself into a relatively self-reliant USA.
Ideally, there would be some sort of a hybrid model, ushering in a new age of co-producing with our closest allies. There are ways to get America’s debt and economy on a more level basis without killing all of the trust and norms that took decades to build. We are all in this together and must find ways to build U.S. manufacturing and self-reliance back without eviscerating our friends in the global economy. We might actually need something other than BMWs and champagne from them in the future.
It is incredible, despite all of the nasty public displays, that as now, we are still the place where everyone in the world wants to do business. Even after the big tariffs on the EU, most of my clients were resolute and focused about the “long game,” as I’ve come to tab it.
Businesspeople around the world want small government—but need to be able to compete on a level basis.