China isn’t Europe’s real problem

Generals losing a war examine the enemy, battlefield and their own forces. Brussels prefers a different sequence, ordering new weapons first and worrying about the diagnosis later.

That instinct was on display at the recent European Council meeting. Faced with a trade deficit it cannot close and dependencies it cannot shake, the European Union agreed on a new label: “global macroeconomic imbalances”.

To solve them, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen was reportedly directed to...