Why Donald Trump fuels his trade war with Europe

Audio 03:59

By: Dominique Baillard Follow

The US administration plans to strengthen customs taxes on European products in the context of aeronautics litigation. Why this new escalation in the trade war waged by Donald Trump against the European Union?

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Donald Trump likes to play with the nerves of his interlocutors, and he has found a new technique to weaken them; the torture of the carousel. This consists of regularly changing the target of commercial reprisals to properly disorganize and panic the sectors concerned. French wines, gin, British beer or even lenses made in Germany for cameras are now in the sights of the American service responsible for establishing the list. Luxury clothing could be integrated and see their price double with 100% taxes, enough to stop purchases by American customers. Starting in August, three European products face a further drastic increase in customs duties. Obviously, in the current context of recession, it is a heavy blow for the European exporters as for the American distributors who also suffer from these commercial reprisals. They have one month to express their reservations. The spirits and luxury sectors are the most affected. This information released late Tuesday evening, coupled with the resurgence of the coronavirus, have sealed the European and American stock exchanges.

Why this new offensive from the Americans at a time when their economy is doing so badly ?

Donald Trump has two calendars in mind. First that of the presidential election, it is in November, and to be re-elected, it vibrates the rope of economic nationalism which touches the heart of its electorate. The voices of American wine merchants and brewers are no match for those of industrial regions threatened by global competition. The other calendar is that of the World Trade Organization (WTO) which has been arbitrating this conflict over aeronautics for ten years now. And the decisions and the agenda of the WTO are rather favorable to the United States. The WTO authorized, last fall, the American reprisals against the public subsidies to Airbus on a total amount of 7.5 billion dollars of goods.

Washington has so far implemented tariff increases on about half of this envelope

History of keeping cartridges in his game to force Europeans to negotiate. For the moment it has failed, the coronavirus has stopped talks altogether; and now to stop them from fighting back; because they too have gone to the WTO and are demanding reparations for the public subsidies granted to Boeing. Bad luck for Brussels, the WTO will not make its decision until September; Washington takes advantage of this latency and once again threatens in the hope of terrorizing its adversary.

What are the main countries in the view of the White House ?

France, Germany, Spain, Italy and the United Kingdom. Countries which also intend to apply a new tax against GAFA, the American giants of the net for tax. Another issue to which the United States is now very hostile. After agreeing to negotiate the implementation of this tax within the framework of the OECD, they announced last week that they were withdrawing from the discussions, threatening in the way the States which would apply it without concerted commercial reprisals. The two files, aeronautics and digital tax, are completely separate but they are indeed the facets of the same war, the one openly waged by Donald Trump against his transatlantic ally.

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• United States
• Donald trump
• European Union