On April 2, 2025, Donald Trump, in typical chauvinist fashion, declared a so-called ‘Liberation Day’ – and announced aggressive tariffs against countries across the globe. The symbolism is clear: the United States poses as a liberator from “unfair trade” while in reality calling for a return to brutal, imperialist economic nationalism that serves no one except the elites in Washington and on Wall Street.

What the US sells as “liberation” is, in truth, a global economic war against any country that refuses to submit to its dictates. It is the consolidation of a ruthless system that funnels wealth to the US while keeping the rest of the world in dependency, poverty, and vulnerability to blackmail.

Trump’s tariffs are no anomaly. They are part of a long-standing global system of extortion. MERA25 has warned for years: the US uses its economic, military, and ideological dominance to shape the world order in its own interests – an empire governed not by partnership, but by sanctions, destabilisation, and war.

From Cuba, Iran, China, and Venezuela to Iraq, Libya, and Afghanistan – the US imperial power has, for decades, with European complicity, ravaged states in the Global South and robbed millions of people of their right to a peaceful and dignified life.

Our answer? European independence. A breakup with the imperial empire. And the building of a new world order that is just, solidarity-driven, and decolonial.

What does MERA25 mean by European independence?

European independence does not mean isolation. It means rejecting imperial alliances with the US – or any other imperial power. We stand for deep internationalism, a radically peaceful foreign policy, and just relations with the peoples of the Global South.

To us it is clear: the United States is not a neutral power. It is an imperialist one – bleeding the Global South dry for decades, destroying entire regions in North Africa and the Middle East through war, and keeping Europe economically dependent and militarily controlled.

This dominance runs deep: through multinational corporations sourcing blood minerals from genocide-stricken regions like Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo; through monopolistic tech corporations and billionaires that control our data; through extractive supply chains that destroy entire ecosystems; and through a dollar hegemony that manipulates global financial flows in favour of the US. Trump’s sanctions on states like Cuba, Venezuela, and Iran reveal the logic: whoever resists the empire is punished.

Enough. Europe must free itself – economically, politically, and morally.

Economic independence: Against blackmail, for sovereignty

Trump’s tariffs reflect a system that economically strangles Europe. Our dependency spans from tech control by US giants to extractive trade models and the structural dominance of the US dollar.

MERA25 demands:

• A European industrial policy based on digital sovereignty, not Silicon Valley dependency
• A solidarity-driven energy union with neighbouring regions in the South and East that ends fossil exploitation in the Mediterranean
• An end to trade agreements that trap the Global South in debt systems
• No more “green” technologies built in Europe that rely on blood minerals, environmental destruction, and human rights abuses in the Global South

A truly independent European economy must be based on circular principles, de-growth models, and real global justice – not colonial continuity.

Solidarity with the Global South, not hypocrisy

Europe must choose: will it continue propping up the Western empire, or become part of a new, globally just order?

Trump and co. destroy multilateral institutions, block climate progress, and undermine the UN. Europe plays along – with migration deals made with dictatorships, economic plunder, and political double standards.

MERA25 demands:

• Fair trade relationships that enable local value creation
• Reparations instead of paternalistic development aid
• Political alliances based on equality, not geopolitical patronage

Cultural and moral independence: Breaking the logic of enemy images

China as the enemy? Venezuela as a dictatorship? The Global South as a security threat? These narratives do not originate in Europe – they are made in Washington. And Europe has adopted them without question.

MERA25 breaks with this logic. We recognise:

• China is not the threat to peace – the US is, with over 750 military bases worldwide
• It was not China that invaded dozens of states in the last decades – it was the US
• Peaceful coexistence is possible – if Europe finally regains its moral sovereignty

Dismantling NATO: For a Non-Aligned Europe

NATO is not a defense alliance – it is a military power apparatus. A Cold War relic that today draws new frontlines: against Russia, against China, against every attempt to build a multipolar world.

MERA25 demands:

• A pan-European peace architecture that includes Russia and Ukraine
• The withdrawal of all US military bases and nuclear weapons from European soil
• The end of the NATO doctrine that confuses security with intimidation

Europe needs security through self-determination, not obedience to Washington.

For a New World Order

Trump’s “Liberation Day” stands for the opposite of liberation: for a world order where military, economic, and digital violence have the final say.

MERA25 stands for the rupture with this order. For an independent, anti-colonial, solidaristic Europe that is no longer complicit in empire – but part of a new global movement for justice, equality, and freedom.

Now is the time to break the status quo. Now is the time to reorder the world.

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