Welcome back to the annual ritual of high-altitude hypocrisy known as the World Economic Forum, a place where the world’s most successful vultures congregate to discuss the ‘sustainable’ future of the carcasses they’ve been picking clean. In January 2020, Davos was graced by the presence of Donald Trump, a man who views a global summit not as a platform for diplomacy, but as a long-form infomercial for his own supposed brilliance. Surrounded by the very 'prophets of doom' he so gleefully lambasted, the American President spent his time weaving a narrative of an ‘economic miracle’ that only he could have manufactured—a claim so audacious it almost makes one miss the relative honesty of a common street swindler.

Trump’s performance was a masterclass in the absurd. He pivoted from the ‘unprecedented’ prosperity of the United States to his lingering, 19th-century desire to purchase Greenland, as if the world’s largest island were merely a slightly damp piece of distressed real estate waiting for a gold-plated hotel. The sheer, unadulterated gall required to stand before world leaders and treat sovereign territory like a fixer-upper in Queens is, in a way, the only honest thing about him. It is the purest expression of the American ethos: if you can’t exploit it, buy it; if you can’t buy it, insult the people who won’t sell it to you. While he was at it, he took potshots at NATO, Iran, and any ally within earshot, reminding the world that under his watch, the U.S. doesn't have partners—only begrudging subordinates.

But the real comedy lies across the Atlantic. The European Union, that lumbering, multi-headed beast of administrative drudgery, has decided it finally wants to play soldier. Facing Trump’s constant threats of increased tariffs—the only tool in a protectionist’s very small shed—the EU has unveiled what they are calling an ‘anti-coercion instrument.’ In a display of branding that can only be described as a desperate cry for relevance, they’ve dubbed it a ‘bazooka.’ Let’s be clear: when a committee of career bureaucrats in Brussels calls a trade regulation a ‘bazooka,’ it’s the equivalent of a librarian threatening to hit a professional cage fighter with a rolled-up copy of a library fine notice. It is a tool designed to retaliate against trade bullying, yet it is wrapped in so much procedural red tape that by the time the EU actually fires it, the target will have likely died of old age or been voted out of office.

France 24’s Angela Diffley and Fraser Jackson have been diligently breaking down this looming clash, noting that this ‘bazooka’ could ‘hurt the US economy’ in what is described as a critical midterm year. The stakes, we are told, are monumental. If the EU actually pulls the trigger on this legislative pea-shooter, it could destabilize the very economic miracle Trump spent his Davos keynote shrieking about. The irony is thicker than the smog from the private jets currently clogging the Zurich airport. We have one side running a global superpower like a failing casino and the other side trying to defend its interests with the geopolitical equivalent of a sternly worded Slack message. It’s a battle of the incompetent versus the impotent.

What we are witnessing is the slow-motion collapse of the post-war order, narrated by people who are more concerned with their 2020 reelection prospects and midterm optics than the actual stability of the global markets. The American Right views the EU’s move as a pathetic attempt to stifle American ‘greatness,’ while the European Left views the ‘bazooka’ as a necessary shield against the orange barbarian at the gate. Both are wrong. The Right is too moronic to realize that trade wars have no winners, only different degrees of losers. The Left is too performative to admit that their ‘bazooka’ is just another layer of bureaucracy that will ultimately be paid for by the very consumers they claim to protect.

Ultimately, whether it’s Trump’s tariffs or Europe’s anti-coercion instrument, the result is the same: the peasants in steerage will suffer while the elites at Davos continue to toast to their own resilience. The ‘midterm year’ anxiety is just the flavoring on a dish of pure, concentrated failure. The US economy is a house of cards held together by debt and bravado, and the EU is a circular firing squad trying to agree on the caliber of their rhetorical bullets. As the world watches these two entities posture and preen, it becomes increasingly clear that the only thing more dangerous than their aggression is their collective stupidity. This isn’t a clash of civilizations; it’s a slap-fight between two exhausted dinosaurs, and the only thing we can be sure of is that the rest of us will be the ones who get crushed when they eventually fall over.