Europe’s Shaky Union Faces Trump’s G-7 Stress Test

• Europe has a lot at stake  ensuring the 2019 Group of Seven summit doesn’t end badly like last year’s gathering in Canada.
• Europeans worry that Trump will turn his tariffs on them as he has on China. While trade isn’t on the G-7 agenda, it’s almost certain to be a pressure point.
• The EU is braced for the WTO giving the U.S. the green light for levies on as much as $7Bn of EU goods after a ruling on illegal aircraft subsidies.
• Trump is weighing whether to impose tariffs on auto imports, and a decision could come by mid-November. Doing so would spark retaliation from Brussels and pummel a German economy already on a brink of a recession.
• All this amounts to a big test for French President Emmanuel Macron as he tries to maintain G-7 peace at a time of trade stress and steady a global economy wobbling because of it.

(Source: Bloomberg)