Invited in Forum, the French writer and economist Jacques Attali denounces the weakness of the EU against President Donald Trump, after the agreement providing for customs duties of 15% on European exports to the United States. “Everything bothers me: the method, the symbols and the content,” he regrets.
The United States and the EU have entered into an agreement providing for customs duties of 15% on European exports to the United States. Presented as a compromise limiting breakage, this text is, according to Jacques Attali, writer, economist, former special advisor to François Mitterrand, a “scandalous capitulation”. “Everything bothers me: the method, the symbols and the content,” he regrets at the forum microphone on Thursday.
The agreement protects German, Italian industrial interests, but does nothing to help European construction
The method is humiliating: Donald Trump received European representatives in Scotland, in a hotel that belongs to him and where he had come to inaugurate a new golf course, he explains. The meeting lasted for an hour, concluded by the signing of a “piece of paper” with “summary and wave content”. “An agreement that protects German, Italian industrial interests, but that does nothing to help European construction,” he deplores.
>> Read also: The EU and the United States conclude an agreement which fixes at 15% customs taxes on European products
“Catastrophic”
Jacques Attali, for whom “all of this, in terms of symbols, is catastrophic”, criticizes European promises to buy weapons or invest in America. They are, according to him, completely virtual commitments, because “the European Commission does not have the power to decide.”
This is the first time that the United States has seen democratic Europe as a threat
The EU should have shown his claws, according to him: “The Chinese showed their claws. The Japanese too. The English a little. We, we went to bed.” He believes that Europe should have threatened in turn by surcharging strategic products that the United States needs to export: their cars, its machine tools, their “junk-food”, he asserts. “Europe is very powerful. It remains the second economic market in the world (…). We had the means to do much better.”
Switzerland is not better. A few hours before the announcement promised by Trump on Swiss customs duties, the president of the Confederation Karin Keller-Sutter said that “everything is in the hands of Donald Trump”. A fatalism that Jacques Attali critical. “You have to be in the balance of power as long as you can be (…). It is the first time that the United States has seen democratic Europe as a threat. We must make them understand that it is not their interest in weakening us.”
>> Read also: Karin Keller-Sutter on customs duties: “It’s in the hands of Donald Trump”
China, a great winner?
Donald Trump hopes to fill state funds and attract foreign companies. But, according to Jacques Attali, “a baker has an interest in that his customers are happy, otherwise they do not come back anymore. By acting in this way, Trump pushes Europeans – in any case those who will not give in to the vertigo of submission – to distinguish themselves, even to turn to China.”
He sees in these tensions a symptom of American decline. “The share of American GDP in world GDP has been declining for at least 20 years now. It remains for the moment the first military power in the world.” But in three years, everything could change: “The first military power will be China. The United States will no longer be able to defend Taiwan and Japan.”
When Trump wanted to impose restrictions on China, the latter ceased to sell her rare earths and she no longer answered the phone. Americans quickly changed their attitude
Should we turn to Beijing? Jacques Attali Nuance: “China is a partner that must be considered at least as an alternative, insofar as the United States rejects us. We must keep in mind that we have to diversify our alliances while we build our autonomy”, he underlines.
And to recall a significant anecdote from which the EU could be inspired: “When Trump wanted to impose restrictions on China, the latter stopped selling it rare earths and she no longer answered the phone. The Americans quickly changed their attitude and accepted the Chinese position (…). We, Europeans, we are not in a situation of power of this kind. But we must become.”
Interview by Thibaut Schaller and Anne Fournier
Web adaptation: Fabien Grenon