They warned that Wall Street would collapse. Instead, markets are hitting all-time highs.

They forecast imminent recession. The probability has dropped to 18% and falling.

They said no one would ever accept President Trump’s tariffs. The European Union just did; along with $750 billion in American energy purchases and $600 billion in pledged U.S.-bound investment.

For years, the self-anointed class of global “experts”—from IMF bureaucrats to Brussels trade envoys to cable-news economists—insisted that President Trump’s worldview was outdated, his methods unsophisticated, his policies destined to fail. Instead, the transatlantic consensus is being restructured on his terms.

The July 27th agreement between the U.S. and EU, signed in Scotland, is not some vague framework destined for committee review. It is a hard-edged rebalancing of the economic relationship: a uniform 15% tariff across most goods, replacing the looming threat of 30%, in exchange for an aggressive ramp-up in European energy imports from the U.S. and a deep capital commitment into sectors Washington actually cares about, energy, defense, tech, and manufacturing.

Unlike past trade pacts drafted to placate think tanks and win headlines in Le Monde, this one was forged through pressure and delivered results. No symbolic clauses about sustainability. No long-winded preambles about transatlantic values. Just a clean deal grounded in American leverage and strategic clarity. The EU’s decision to sign wasn’t born out of enthusiasm, but necessity.

It is telling that the EU conceded not just on tariffs, but on substance. Over the next four years, European governments and corporations are expected to channel $600 billion in investment into U.S. sectors prioritized by the Trump administration, semiconductors, military-industrial R&D, critical minerals processing, and high-efficiency energy systems. The oft-mocked phrase “America First” is being translated into binding commercial flows.

Predictably, the press corps that forecast catastrophe is now downplaying success. The same analysts who declared that the markets would crater under Trump’s trade brinkmanship now scramble to explain why the S&P is soaring. The same economists who declared the recession “inevitable” now quietly adjust their models. The same foreign policy sages who warned the Trump presidency would isolate America now watch as allies fall in line, first Japan, then India, now the EU.

This is not the triumph of ideology. It’s the triumph of leverage. Europe needs American energy. It needs U.S. defense guarantees. And in a world fragmenting into competing economic blocs, it needs access to a dollar-based system governed by rules it cannot write but must now follow. President Trump understood this before the clerks in Brussels ever acknowledged it.

And despite the drama, nothing was sacrificed on the American side. Domestic industry remains protected where it matters. The tariff level, though lower than the threatened 30%, is still higher than what Europe faced pre-Trump. The investment commitments are binding. And critically, there’s no attempt to revive the ghost of multilateralism. No WTO intermediaries. No UN-endorsed subclauses. Just state-to-state negotiation anchored in American strength.

What the commentariat still fails to grasp is that President Trump doesn’t approach diplomacy as public relations. He approaches it as transaction. Not hostile, but firm. Not flashy, but effective. While European leaders cycle through platitudes, the POTUS offers costs, incentives, and consequences. It’s not subtle. But it works.

The old guard assured us that leadership meant deference. President Trump showed it means asserting terms. They claimed economic success required consensus. Trump proved it requires conviction.

The results are no longer abstract. American manufacturing confidence is up. European investors are pivoting across the Atlantic. LNG terminals are expanding. Supply chains are quietly being re-Americanized, not through executive orders, but through market signals shaped by power.

So when President Trump calls this the greatest deal ever made, it’s more than branding. It’s a reflection of what the establishment said could never be done—and what, once again, he has done. The experts mocked him. Now they’re taking notes.

Bepi Pezzulli is a Solicitor of the Senior Courts of England and Wales specializing in Governance as well as a Councillor of the Great British PAC. He tweets at @bepipezzulli.

Image: Free image, Pixabay license.