Left-wing pop star Cher cleared former vice president Joe Biden of worries over inappropriate behavior, saying that his touching during a hug didn’t make her feel uncomfortable.

“Once spent time talking 2 Joe Biden In His Office. I asked Point-ed Questions,” Cher said Thursday.

“As Time Passed I Found Him Forthright,Kind,& Smart. At Meetings End He Walked Me 2 The &Gave Me A HUG. I Was Fine With It,But That,Was ‘MY’ Experience. HE MUST COMMIT 2 B’AWARE,& CARE’ABOUT WOMENS SPACE.’”

Biden, who is mulling a run for president, has faced scrutiny over the last week over his past of touchy behavior around women and girls.

Several women have come forward to claim that he made them uncomfortable with his actions like touching, kissing, and smelling their hair. Biden released a video this week to address the allegations, saying that while he had been affectionate in the past, he understood the concerns of his critics.

President Trump mocked Biden with a viral social media post Thursday, saying, “WELCOME BACK JOE!”

Cher’s social media rants frequently veer into the absurd and vulgar.

Last month, the 72-year-old claimed that the president kisses the “asses” of “DICTATORS,CHILD MOLESTERS, MURDERS, WIFE BEATERS, ANTISEMITES, WHITE SUPREMACISTS, HATER OF ANY SKIN NOT LILY WHITE.”

Oettinger on Selmayrgate: Nothing to see here

Commissioner defends super-fast promotion of Juncker’s chief of staff.

After more than a month of breathless accusations about a nepotism scandal, a European Parliament hearing on Martin Selmayr’s promotion was like watching a cat chase its own tail.

MEPs went around and around in questioning the European Commission’s human resources chief, Günther Oettinger, who reiterated that the Selmayr promotion didn’t break any rules.

However, Oettinger said he intended to hold a discussion with the other EU institutions on how to improve the method of choosing a new secretary-general.

Oettinger appeared before the European Parliament’s Budgetary Control Committee on Tuesday to assuage fears about the promotion of Selmayr from Jean-Claude Juncker’s chief of staff to secretary-general. The speed and unexpected nature of the move angered many in the Parliament, who accused the Commission’s top brass of a lack of transparency.

More than 130 questions were filed by MEPs on the subject.

Oettinger — a German conservative, as is Selmayr — was adamant that nothing untoward went on. “We’ve examined it again and again — whether the procedure was legal … and we believe that it was fully in line with the regulations,” he said.

“If you say that the spirit of the law has [only] been partially complied with, we are really in the area of imagination here,” Oettinger added.

He did agree with a request from Inés Ayala Sender, a Socialist member of the committee, to provide further access to documents on how the secretary-general is chosen. This would be done after Juncker’s time in office ends — the Commission chief steps down in 2019.

“This must be done according to a new set of rules inspired by a greater transparency, a collegial approach and an equal opportunities-based principle,” Ayala Sender said.

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The parliamentary hearing, which was open to the public and lasted more than two hours, took place two weeks after MEPs held a plenary debate on the same topic in which they strongly condemned what they said was a lack of integrity and transparency in the decision. Oettinger also spoke at the plenary debate and many of his remarks on Tuesday echoed what he said then.

The commissioner dismissed concerns about Selmayr’s competence and any allegations of nepotism or cronyism. “I didn’t know Mr. Selmayr is a relative of Mr. Juncker,” Oettinger said.

However, he evaded questions about the need for a procedure to appoint senior managers that involves several candidates, saying “we never have a guarantee that there are many we can choose from and if one candidate who fills the requirement is prepared to fulfill that post, it would be unfair to that person to cancel that whole procedure.”

Some MEPs asked why Oettinger and most of his fellow commissioners didn’t know until the last minute that the previous secretary-general, Alexander Italianer, was retiring.

“Do you not feel bypassed?” Dutch Liberal Gerben-Jan Gerbrandy asked. Oettinger did not answer.

After the hearing, Gerbrandy said in a statement that the hearing “raised more questions than it provided answers.”

Oettinger also denied that Selmayr took part in a pre-European summit meeting of the European People’s Party last week. Selmayr, Oettinger said, was not in the room when senior European conservatives were discussing “a proper and rapid response to the decisions from the USA” to put up tariffs on EU imports of steel and aluminum.

He also said Selmayr had helped draft some responses to MEPs’ questions on his appointment as “it would be strange not to.”

The Budgetary Control Committee will include its opinions on Tuesday’s hearing in a resolution to be voted on by all MEPs in April.

Thursday on ABC’s “The View,” co-host Whoopi Goldberg defended former Vice President Joe Biden on his comments about working with segregationists.

Goldberg said, “I grew up during the ’60s, late ’50s, ’60s and people like Robert Byrd were my senators, and Richard Russell, Strom Thurmond, William Fulbright, Sam Ervin a lot of these guys voted no on the Civil Rights Act. Some of them were former Klansmen. This is the world as it was. This is the world as it was. That’s why LBJ had to beat up people to get them to notice us enough to give us the right to vote, OK?”

She continued, “You have to work with people you don’t like, and if you are in an entire environment where there is lots of different people that you don’t like, you have to figure out what to do. Listen, beat him, beat Biden in the debates, you know? If you can beat him, beat him. Don’t try to make him out a racist. You don’t like some of the stuff he has done? Say that, but you can’t call the dude a racist. He sat for eight years with a black guy. Did he have a noose in the background? Come on! There are real racists out there. There are real racist out there. Nobody who’s running has a perfect record. There’s something to find on everybody.”

Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN

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Ola and Abel Osundairo — the brothers who allegedly helped carry out a hate hoax against Empire actor Jussie Smollett — have filed a defamation lawsuit against Smollett’s attorneys Mark Geragos and Tina Glandianin.

In a lawsuit filed Tuesday in a federal court in Chicago, the Osundairo brothers alleged Smollett compensated them to “stage the attack [against Smollett] to benefit himself” and “directed every aspect of the attack, including the location and the noose.”

The brothers say “Smollett used his clout as a wealthy actor to influence Plaintiffs, who were in a subordinate relationship to him and were aspiring to ‘make it’ in Hollywood.”

According to the lawsuit, the Osundairo brothers are suing Geragos and Glandianon because they continue to evoke their role in the ordeal during media appearances.

The brothers testified before a grand jury, and Smollett was later charged with filing a false police report about the attack. An attorney who has represented the brothers, Gloria Schmidt, said that the pair did not testify as part of any plea deal and that they were not granted any immunity from prosecution. In March Cook  County prosecutors dropped all criminal charges accusing Smollett of staging the incident, saying they believed they could prove the charges but that it wasn’t worth the time and expense.

After using surveillance cameras and other methods, police identified the Osundairo brothers as suspects and learned that they had flown to Nigeria the same day as the reported attack. The men were arrested February 13 at O’Hare Airport but within two days were released without charges after detailing the alleged plot orchestrated by Smollett. The deal included a $3,500 payment to help stage the attack, which Smollett hoped would help promote his career, police said.

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Smollett, who is black and gay, claimed January 29th that he was attacked and beaten by two masked men who shouted slurs and yelled, “This is MAGA country,” an apparent reference to President Donald Trump’s campaign slogan, “Make America Great Again.” Smollett also said the men doused him with a chemical and put a noose around his neck.

The AP contributed to this report. 

As Jean-Claude Juncker enters his last full year in office, he’ll be thinking about his legacy.

Will he be remembered as the European Commission president who saw the European Union shrink, rather than grow, as Britain leaves the bloc?

The widening divisions between North and South, East and West — prompted by the refugee and euro crises — are also potential blemishes on his record. The fault lines created by these crises have weakened the relevance of the Brussels-based institutions, and have put his legacy in jeopardy.

To be sure, Juncker is not personally responsible for any of these calamities. If anything, the Luxembourgish politician — and the EU’s Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier — deserve a lot of credit for using the Brexit crisis to “take back control” and for keeping the EU27 united.

But if Juncker wants to leave office with an eye to his place in the history books, 2018 will have to be the year he does more than muddle through.

In his State of the Union speech last year, Juncker lifted his eyes from crisis management to outline a personal vision for a united, Commission-led Union rather than the multispeed, flexible union put forward by Emmanuel Macron.

He called for an EU finance minister, for opening up the eurozone and Schengen to all Eastern member countries, and for a real European president — who would head the Commission and the Council — elected by the people.

These are all interesting ideas, but they would involve institutional reforms that would be impossible to push through in a year. They are virtue-signalling rather than a real plan for action.

So, what can he actually accomplish?

Rather than trying to change the treaties, Juncker should use his last 12 months to make a real difference in the three policy areas that matter most to the bloc’s future: security, trade and technology.

His first target should be to deliver on the idea of a “Europe that protects.” As populist and far-right parties continue to gain traction across the bloc, it’s crucial that the EU show its citizens it can protect and empower them, rather than make them feel vulnerable and lacking in agency.

Europe’s citizens care less about spreading universal values and enlarging the Union than they do about feeling protected. That will only become more true as the threats of terrorism and cyberwarfare become more acute and authoritarian powers continue to agitate outside the EU’s borders. The EU needs to become a more muscular union in response to these threats.

Juncker has already moved the dial in this direction by pushing for the development of a European defense fund and making the case for greater defense integration.

But the early signs of the Permanent Structured Cooperation agreement (PESCO) are worrying. Rather than push ahead with a few determined members countries, PESCO includes an unworkably high number of countries — 25 so far — including spoiler nations such as Cyprus, whose main goal is to block EU-NATO relations. This will cripple the agreement’s effectiveness.

In its current state, PESCO will not help the EU to lead. Unless it is changed, the danger is that serious member countries will work around the EU institutions rather than see them as allies.

When it comes to trade, the EU needs to establish itself not only as a promoter of free trade, but as a guarantor of fair trade. One of the striking features of Juncker’s State of the Union speech was the emphasis on advancing trade deals with countries that are struggling from the effects of American protectionism.

It’s a step in the right direction, but to ratify these deals, the Commission will have to persuade citizens that the EU is not a force for uncontrolled globalization but their best hope of taming it.

To do so, Juncker will have to pay specific attention to upholding environmental and labor standards in deals with external powers. He will also have to ensure citizens are protected from fiscal and social dumping within the single market.

A revolution in Europe’s attitude to trade also implies protecting Europeans from foreign investments in strategic assets. This is something the Commission has tried to push forward with its ambitious proposals on screening of foreign direct investment, especially to prevent Chinese state companies from investing in sectors that are critical to European wealth.

That leaves technology. Perhaps the best way for Juncker to secure his legacy is to fully throw his weight behind Brussels’ efforts to become a regulatory superpower in the digital age.

Companies the size of countries — Amazon, Apple, Google, Facebook — have been central to many of the economic and social advances of the last two decades. But they have also changed our political and media landscapes and the nature of our societies, and turned our tax rules upside down.

The Commission has emerged as the only regulatory power willing and capable of defending our values and societies in the face of this massive technological change. Regulatory firepower is one of the few areas in which the EU is taken seriously around the world.

The world’s tech giants listen to what Brussels has to say, because they know a Commission decision could change their regulatory environment worldwide. This is especially true after the Commission hit Apple and Google with extraordinary fines in antitrust cases. If Europe challenges the way tech giants do business, so might other regulators who lack the economic weight to take them on by themselves.

The chances for European renewal are better in 2018 than they were at the beginning of Juncker’s term. Once Berlin forms a government that can provide an answer to France’s reform proposals, the economy will be much stronger than at any other point in Juncker’s term.

But this window of opportunity will close after 2018, when the European Parliament election could embolden populists and economic growth is projected to slow. The next Commission president will face a much steeper uphill climb.

Mark Leonard is the director of the European Council on Foreign Relations.

This year’s Met Gala theme at New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art was “Camp: Notes on Fashion,” as in Grace Jones, drag queens, Elton John, and Madonna — not the Boy Scouts.

And while Hollywood’s biggest celebrities camped up their usual appearances, far too many of them looked less like theatrical creations and more like attention-seeking wannabes. Here, I break down the 2019 Met Gala’s best and worst dressed.

Best Dressed — Lady Gaga in Brandon Maxwell

Lady Gaga came to the Met Gala ready to not only show off four separate looks but to set scenes for them as well. Camp? Yes. Cool? Not really.

Gaga’s only look that really impressed me was this “Saved by the Bell” hot pink satin gown by Brandon Maxwell that featured a giant pair of bedazzled shades — the good bougie ones that cost $10 bucks but look like $100 — and none other than a brick phone from 1995. She should have arrived in this look and stayed in it all night. As you scroll down, you’ll know why.

(Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for The Met Museum/Vogue)

(Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images)

(Neilson Barnard/Getty Images)

Worst Dressed — Lady Gaga in Brandon Maxwell

Gaga’s other three looks, all by Brandon Maxwell, were so ridiculous, so cheap, so not fashion, it’s almost disrespectful how she carried herself as the special guest for the evening of Vogue Editor-in-Chief Anna Wintour.

She arrived in fuschia version of Princess Diana’s billowing wedding dress from 1981. She then stripped down to a sleeveless black gown with a similar 1980s-esque poof skirt on one hip and carried an umbrella, as if she was role-playing Mary Poppins. Fast forward to the last look, and Gaga is in a cheap, unflattering black bra and panties with fishnet stockings and matching platform boots.

This Lady surely isn’t a lady after all.

(Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for The Met Museum/Vogue)

(Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for The Met Museum/Vogue)

(Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images)

(Neilson Barnard/Getty Images)

Worst Dressed — Lena Dunham in Christopher Kane 

Actress Lena Dunham arrived in this Christopher Kane ensemble and left me wondering who let her walk out of the house like this? With a giant bow draped down her back, wrinkles at her crotch, latex gloves that appear to be cutting off her arm circulation, and a pair of heels that should never see the light of day, Lena once again gets it all wrong.

There’s always next year!

(Neilson Barnard/Getty Images)

Best Dressed — Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen in vintage Chanel

For avid Fashion Notes readers, you will know that my fixation for “The Row” fashion designers Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen is borderline unhealthy. So, of course, these two end up on my best dressed list — but for good reason, I promise!

Chanel’s Karl Lagerfeld has been gone now for about nearly three months. In my tribute to him, I called him fashion’s most prolific innovator, and it’s true, he was. And yet, the snobs of the fashion establishment have treated Lagerfeld’s death as though he was just another designer. There have been few Vogue cover tributes to him and no one paid tribute to him at the Met Gala this year, except for the Olsens.

In matching vintage leather Chanel looks, the Olsen twins paid homage to Lagerfeld in their own twist on camp fashion. After all, the campiest of camp is doing the fashion don’t and dressing in the same outfit as someone else on the pink carpet.

(Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for The Met Museum/Vogue)

Worst Dressed — Katy Perry in Moschino 

Pop singer Katy Perry got caught up in a gorgeous Moschino chandelier but failed to look elegant in any way. There is something always quite lame about what Katy does. She’s a sugary pop star who wears sugary clothes that really any other sugary pop star could wear better.

I imagine this chandelier look would be better worn by Rihanna.

(ANGELA WEISS/AFP/Getty Images)

Best Dressed — Amber Valletta in Saint Laurent

Even when it comes to camp fashion, less is more.

While others balanced feathered collars on their shoulders and chandeliers on their heads, supermodel Amber Valletta wore a nothing but a lime green ostrich coat and sexy black bodysuit by Saint Laurent’s Anthony Vaccarello. This look with Valletta’s severely-parted sidebang, black tights, and black pumps was très chic on a night when everyone was going over-the-top.

(Neilson Barnard/Getty Images)

(Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for The Met Museum/Vogue)

Best Dressed — Lucy Boynton in Prada 

Actress Lucy Boynton was a dream on the red pink carpet at the Met Gala, like a fairy floating through the hordes of celebrities desperately trying to set up poses and dramatic arrivals.

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In this pale grey and purple Prada gown covered in hours of beadwork, feathers, and a matching headband, Lucy paired her light seafoam-toned hair to her look and opted for icey eyelashes. I would call this, effortless camp.

(Neilson Barnard/Getty Images)

(ANGELA WEISS/AFP/Getty Images)

Best Dressed — Shawn Mendes in Saint Laurent

Shawn Mendes is the teen girl’s newest heartthrob and I imagine that he’ll be breaking even more hearts after his adoring fans see him in this classic, Elvis Presley-style Saint Laurent suit.

While other boys at the Met Gala tapped into a gender-bending persona, Mendes kept it cool in this black suit designed by Anthony Vaccarello, a Saint Laurent’s creative director. His slicked-back hair, black shirt, pointed black crocodile oxfords, and single silver medal on his chest was the subtle rock and roll vibe that this pink carpet was lacking.

(Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images)

(ANGELA WEISS/AFP/Getty Images)

Worst Dressed — Gigi Hadid in Michael Kors

It’s nice that model Gigi Hadid arrived as Frozone from “The Incredibles” this year, but she must have forgotten that the superhero them was a few years ago. And to think Michael Kors designed this gold and white speckled bodysuit, cape, and helmet combo.

Stick to the cashmere sweaters and “MK” handbags!

(Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for The Met Museum/Vogue)

Best Dressed — Kacey Musgraves in Moschino

I won’t lie, when I first saw country singer Kacey Musgraves in this Barbie-inspired Moschino look by Jeremy Scott, I thought I was looking at Paris Hilton which truly is not a bad thing. The two could be identical twins!

What I find so exciting about this look is that it is an homage to the great Dolly Parton’s “Backwoods Barbie” album with its hot pink leather motorcycle jacket gown, matching faux fur stole, plastic pink sunglasses, silver pumps, and what else but a hot pink hairdryer handbag!

The country girl with a southern twang who grows up to be a blonde ambition. Country camp never looked so city.

(Andrew Toth/Getty Images for The Mark Hotel)

Best Dressed — Jared Leto in Gucci 

Singer Jared Leto is very close friends with Gucci’s creative director Alessandro Michele, so naturally, when the two worked together on Leto’s look for the Met Gala, he was given the royal treatment.

This royal treatment came in the form of a draped red cape cloke and beaded harness with a heart at the center along with a doppelganger of Leto’s head that that rockstar carried with him throughout the evening, straight from the Gucci runway. It’s all so Game of Thrones!

(Neilson Barnard/Getty Images)

(Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for The Met Museum/Vogue)

Best Dressed — Naomi Campbell in Valentino 

Supermodel Naomi Campbell’s Valentino gown, lace tights, and heels were truly an exceptional ensemble mostly because it took all of the most traditionally tacky elements of fashion and made them work.

A plunging neckline, check. Purple feathers, check. White lace stockings, check check. And strappy matching stilettos, check. All of it came together in such an ethereal yet humorous way. I guess when you’re this super you really can’t do any wrong.

(Neilson Barnard/Getty Images)

Worst Dressed — Kris Jenner in Tommy Hilfiger

Kris Jenner might be the queen of her Kardashian empire, but she definitely was not the queen of the Met Gala. Unlike Kylie and Kendall, two of her famous daughters who looked fierce for the evening, Kris wore a blonde wig and a patriotic Tommy Hilfiger creation that seemed to have a showgirl undertone.

I feel like her kids are trying to sabotage her.

(ANGELA WEISS/AFP/Getty Images)

Best Dressed — Miley Cyrus in Saint Laurent

Singer Miley Cyrus was so cool on the pink carpet for the Met Gala, which is at times an aesthetic that folks are often trying to imitate. However, when everyone else is in camped up looks, there is something very pleasing about seeing a young girl in a nightclub-ready party dress.

With her natural sandy blonde hair, Miley’s striped Saint Laurent mini skirt dress featured a beautifully sculptured front bodice and back, like origami. The polka dot black tights, strappy satin platform heels, and Edie Sedgwick style chandelier earrings made her the coolest chick on the pink carpet — sort of like she didn’t even care to be there.

(Neilson Barnard/Getty Images)

Best Dressed — Celine Dion in Oscar de la Renta

Celine Dion came to the Met Gala with a goal: Remind everyone who the original Divas are.

In this stunning gold and silver beaded bodysuit and intricate feathered headdress by Oscar de la Renta, she not only made her point but she outshined some of Hollywood’s youngest It Girls. Just check out those legs and that bronzed tan!

Ariana who?

(Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for The Met Museum/Vogue)

(Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for The Met Museum/Vogue)

Worst Dressed — Tiffany Haddish in Michael Kors

I was shocked (not really) to find out that actress Tiffany Haddish’s suit was designed by Michael Kors, mostly because I just assumed she had gotten it from the “Men’s Funky Pimp Costume” section at Party City.

(Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for The Met Museum/Vogue)

Best Dressed — Harry Styles in Gucci

If there is an aesthetic that embodies camp the most it is gender-bending and struggle between the masculine and feminine. So, of course, singer Harry Styles had to channel Madonna from her “Confessions” tour in this gorgeous Gucci black frilled lace top, black trousers, and patent leather boots.

The equal balance between the feminine — the black lace, pearl earring, and slightly taller than usual boot — and the masculine — the traditional men’s trousers, unshaven face, and boyish tattoos — is what makes Harry’s look one of the best of the night. This is certainly one of those ensembles that is much harder to put together than it appears. There’s an art to it that others seemed to skip over in favor of dramaticism.

(Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images)

(ANGELA WEISS/AFP/Getty Images)

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder. 

Apple to send $38 billion in taxes on overseas cash to the US

Apple said Thursday it would pay roughly $38 billion in tax to the United States because of recent tax law changes, after repatriating cash it now holds overseas.

The move comes as American and European politicians remain divided over how U.S. tech companies — firms that have, collectively, $2 trillion stashed outside of the U.S. — should pay tax on their global operations.

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That fight will likely grow as more companies follow Apple’s lead to move money held overseas back to the United States where recent tax reforms permit companies to pay a tax rate of 15.5 percent on repatriated earnings compared to the existing corporate tax rate of 35 percent, before deductions.

“We have a deep sense of responsibility to give back to our country and the people who help make our success possible,” Tim Cook, Apple’s chief executive, said in a blog post.

As part of the announcement, the iPhone maker said that it would spend an estimated $55 billion in the U.S. during 2018 on its own investments and for those targeted within its domestic supply chain.

Apple’s decision to move such a sizable amount of money back to the U.S. will raise eyebrows in many European capitals, as well as within the European Commission, which demanded in 2016 that the company repay €13 billion in back taxes to the Irish government.

Both Ireland and Apple are appealing that ruling.

UPDATED: This item was updated to clarify that Apple said it will pay $38 billion in taxes to the U.S.

 

 

Political Economy is a column about the intersection of economics, finance and politics across Europe.

PARIS — Donald Trump may prove to be the catalyst for change the eurozone has long been looking for.

The protectionist U.S. president is forcing Europeans to face the unsettling problem of their massive current account surplus, which has been the best indicator of everything that’s wrong in the monetary union in the last five years.

Forget Trump’s own economic analysis or lack thereof, and forget the attention-grabbing headlines on coming trade wars that may or may not happen. The U.S. president’s attacks on German exports — his Exhibit A that the Europeans aren’t playing a fair trade game — have helped throw a harsh light on the eurozone’s No. 1 problem.

Far from being a sign of economic well-being, the eurozone’s surplus — $380 billion last year or about 3 percent of the region’s gross domestic product — reflects the monetary union’s deep structural flaws, worsened by the way it addressed its long crisis.

It’s the result of internal imbalances compounded by the bad policies implemented during the crisis, and of the EU’s so-called rules being poorly enforced, if at all.

Most damaging for other countries, it can also be seen as “a way for Europe to export its problems to the rest of the world,” according to one central banker.

At their last summit in Brussels last month, EU leaders talked disjointedly about the protectionist menace from the U.S. and about their longstanding plans for eurozone reform. But they should have devoted one session to both problems, which are linked.

Europe’s current accounts — which include both the trade of goods and of services — have shown a rising surplus since 2012, after years of being roughly balanced. The surplus rose to 1.5 percent of GDP that year, then climbed every year to reach nearly 4 percent in 2016.

At $380 billion, it’s now much larger than China’s $200 billion surplus (about 1.7 percent of that country’s GDP, according to data from the International Monetary Fund). And looking ahead, the situation will get worse. According to IMF forecasts, China’s current accounts will be roughly balanced in 2022, whereas the eurozone’s surplus will hardly have shrunk by then.

The eurozone surplus doesn’t reflect the strength of the German industrial machine or the supposed virtue of its policies — fiscal or otherwise. It is mostly the result of the eurozone’s structural imbalances.

For a monetary union’s economy to be balanced, it has to take into account the differences between its respective nations’ different political, economic, and social systems. What happened instead when the euro crisis took everyone by surprise in 2009 was that each member country was told to become more like Germany.

But for the system to work, if everyone must become like Germany, then Germany must also become a little bit less German. Surprise — this is not what happened.

Countries in trouble were told to cut costs, boost competitiveness and implement austerity policies. It worked: Imports fell and exports rose.

Spain and Italy are now showing significant surpluses. In each of these countries, the balance has improved (from deficit to surplus) by roughly $100 billion since 2009 — the same as Germany’s accounts, which went from a $200 billion to $300 billion surplus.

Germany, though, didn’t change the course of its economic policy and didn’t feel any pressure to do so as the European Commission, which has the means to clamp down on “excessive imbalances,” looked the other way.

According to European rules that are even less enforced than the more talked-about ones on fiscal deficits, a member country cannot run a surplus higher than 6 percent of its GDP. Germany’s surplus amounted to 8 percent of GDP last year, while the Netherlands’ was 8.5 percent.

As long as the narrative of the eurozone crisis keeps making a surplus the moralistic sign of economic virtue, Europeans are unlikely to dare to take steps to tackle a problem that is now the world’s.

Here’s hoping that the brutality of Trump’s attack on free trade will force them to spring into action.

Pierre Briançon is chief European economics correspondent for POLITICO.

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