the European Union prepares its response to the new American president

In 1967, the journalist Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber published an essay that became a worldwide bestseller: The American challenge. He told how American companies, strong in their management, their investments, their research budgets, were going to take over the world. Faced with this offensive, Europe had to unite more or disappear.

Three generations later, the United States of Donald Trump is launching a new existential challenge to the Old Continent. Customs taxes, doubts about maintaining the NATO military alliance, pressure on our diplomatic lines, deregulation of new technologies… the threats are known. Can the European Union (EU) answer this? Described by Trump in 2018 as “as bad as China although smaller”, the EU is wrong, in his eyes, to sell more to America than it buys from it. In the Trumpian worldview, this trade deficit of 156.7 billion euros constitutes an admission of weakness on the part of the United States, which must be corrected by overtaxing French wines, Italian cheeses and German cars. With the aim that the American consumer will turn away from these overpriced products in favor of cars from Michigan and chardonnays from California.

The European Commission is preparing a response that alternates between sticks and carrots. Counter-sanctions would target, if necessary, Boeing planes, orange juice from Florida, bourbon from Kentucky. At the same time, the Europeans are dangling promises to the new administration. They could buy, across the Atlantic, more liquefied natural gas and oil (of which Trump wants to increase production), continue to increase their military budgets, which would make it possible to acquire fighters and air-to-ground missiles. made in America and would commit to reducing their purchases from China, the strategic rival of the United States.

Disunity and vulnerability

To succeed, this deterrence strategy requires a united Europe. However, “Member States present varying vulnerabilities to American commercial pressure, which can exacerbate differences of interests within the bloc,” notes Elvire Fabry, researcher at the Jacques Delors Institute. If we add the political antagonisms within the Twenty-Seven, which tilt Italy, Hungary, the Netherlands – and perhaps tomorrow a Germany governed by the right – on an ideological line close to that of Donald Trump, the cohesion of the Union is far from guaranteed. The Dutch Minister of the Economy has already started solo discussions with his future American counterpart. What would happen if the new power in Washington demanded to be exempt from the carbon tax applied at EU borders from 2026? What if, under pressure from Elon Musk and the tech giants, very active behind the scenes, the President-elect requested a review of the Internet regulation adopted last year by Brussels?

The biggest shock to come will undoubtedly lie elsewhere. If Donald Trump implements the all-out deregulation he promised and initiates a massive tax cut, European companies will not emerge unscathed. Projects for new factories and capital will certainly prefer to take the route to America rather than being located on our continent. By announcing his desire to “launch a shock of simplification of European regulations”, the commissioner in charge of Industrial Strategy, the Frenchman Stéphane Séjourné, relayed the discreet but growing concern of European bosses. This will not be the least of the challenges to be overcome.