“To be free, you need to be feared,” said Emmanuel Macron, the French president, on July 30th. “We were not feared enough.” He was speaking three days after Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission’s boss, had agreed a one-sided trade deal with President Donald Trump at his Turnberry golf course in Scotland. The agreement entails higher tariffs on European goods without any retaliation in kind. This humbling asymmetry was quickly condemned by the continent’s politicians and press. But the European Union (EU) had good reasons for its faint-heartedness. It had to make enough concessions to keep Mr Trump engaged in Europe, while limiting the damage to its own economy. For now, it seems to have accomplished that.