During the summer of 2026, the
E.U. found itself at one point trying to make the unnecessarily arduous and
utterly artificial distinction between trade and foreign policy as if they were
mutually exclusive. This task was foisted on the Council of Ministers due to
the domain-specific application of the state veto, which is to say, the
requirement of unanimity. The sheer artificiality was outdone only by the absurdity
of any of 27 states still being able to veto proposed federal law and policy in
some but not all policy domains, and thus hamstring the E.U. even when the
good of the whole, supported by the vast majority of states and E.U. citizens,
supported action on the federal level. The global context at the time with
respect to international relations belied a stark separation of trade from
foreign policy.
The full essay is at "Trade Is Trade."