A day after the EU and U.S. struck a trade deal, the French government has come out swinging against the agreement, calling instead for tariff retaliation and warning that Europe would be politically weakened if it didn’t hit back. Via the New York Times:
“It is a dark day when an alliance of free peoples, gathered to affirm their values and defend their interests, resolves to submit,” Prime Minister François Bayrou wrote about the deal, which imposes 15 percent tariffs on European imports to the United States, but lowers barriers in European countries for American imports.
France had been leading a charge in Europe to retaliate against the United States ahead of the deal, after an earlier threat by President Trump to impose a punishing 30 percent tariff on the Europeans. Mr. Trump’s on-again, off-again tariff threats had galvanized President Emmanuel Macron in particular, who said the European Union had no choice but to present a show of force.
[...] Mr. Trump and Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, focused on the scale of the trade deal on Sunday when they met at Mr. Trump’s golf course in Scotland. The two sides have the biggest economic relationship in the world, trading nearly $2 trillion in goods and services annually.
Despite France’s push on other European countries to take a harder line, a majority of them had wanted a deal quickly. Ms. Von der Leyen “simply took into account the wishes of the majority of member states who do not want a confrontation with the United States,” Gérard Araud, France’s former ambassador to the United States, wrote on Monday.
Macron is probably right. As we know, when Trump bullies anyone into giving him what he wants, he only wants more. And I doubt France is the only country that feels this way. Every single member of the EU is going to have to vote to validate this blackmail agreement.
