Comment by the host of "120 minutes" on bTV Svetoslav Ivanov:
It is naive to think that Donald Trump will spend at least 3 minutes a day thinking about Bulgaria. It is very likely that he does not even know in which part of Europe Bulgaria is. But after imposing tariffs on imports of goods from Mexico and Canada at the beginning of the week, which he later canceled or at least delayed, the threat to Europe remains relevant.
It is time to try to imagine what relations between the US and Bulgaria would look like in the context of the new approach of the American president to the European Union. My friend Valeri Bozhinov would probably say that "the new approach will be like the old one, but new" and he would be partially right. I say this absolutely seriously.
In 2023, the European Union exported goods worth 502 billion euros to the US, and imported goods worth 344 billion. It is this difference of 158 billion that infuriates Trump in order to be angry with Europe.
"They don't buy enough of our cars, they don't buy our goods" was one of the main motives during his election campaign.
Bulgaria, for its part, absolutely, completely and categorically fits into the general European profile of more exports than imports. In 2023, we imported goods worth about half a billion dollars, and exported about a billion and a half.
That is why we can expect that the time is not far off when Sofia will be pressured to buy more from the US. It is highly likely that the new American ambassadors will be instructed to act as trade representatives, and the embassies in Europe as regional corporate offices.
Let's buy, let's buy, but what will we buy?
And here Bozhinov's logic comes right into play - "that the new administration will be like the old but new". That is, we will buy weapons! Just like during Trump's first term, we bought the F-16 Block 70 fighters. First we ordered eight, and then eight more. Then in Eastern Europe there was a kind of competition between the American embassies to see who would contract for how many aircraft. Sofia did not win. Warsaw won. Poland ordered 32 F-35 fighters for 4.6 billion euros.
So far, we have no reason to believe that the US approach will be different. In the world of Trump, who calls trade relations with the EU an "atrocity" - the more you buy, the more attention you get. If you buy enough, you might be invited to sit by the fireplace for 10-15 minutes, which has always been quite tempting for prime ministers and presidents of smaller countries in the bloc like Bulgaria, Slovakia, Slovenia.
Trump's approach to international relations is entirely transactional and commercial. Forget about words like human rights, democracy and freedom of speech, international law or the sovereignty of states. Proof of this are the claims to Denmark for Greenland, Panama for the Panama Canal and his words to Ukraine at the beginning of the week - "Give us access to your natural resources so we can continue to supply you with weapons and aid".
This looks like anything but an initiative or even a thought for peace. It looks more like a message that we can summarize with "You fight, we'll dig". Or the idea that surprised even his closest advisers - that the Palestinians from Gaza should be resettled so that the enclave can be rebuilt to become the Riviera. To propose resettlement to people who have been fighting wars for resettlement for generations is quite... I don't even know how to comment on it.
But let's get back to the main question. What else will we buy? Obviously liquefied natural gas. After 2022, sanctions against Russia make this process easier, but the quantities will probably be increased. The European Commission is currently probably considering various options for increasing the goods that member states would import from the US.
If this approach does not work, Europe has enough other tools to resist blackmail. Because the European Union, as the third largest and most important market on the planet, is neither Canada nor Mexico, whose exports to the US are 20% and 30% of their entire economy, respectively.
In the case of tariffs, Brussels has enough tools to respond. There are two options - reciprocal, which is the more logical option. Reciprocity is a term from diplomacy. But in economics there is another term - "bazooka". This is already associated with large-scale economic non-reciprocal intervention, probably against American technology giants. Is Trump aiming for such an escalation or is he just bluffing? Whatever the answer - at first we will probably buy more.