The Washington Bluffer
On July 12, Donald Trump posted a letter on his social media platform announcing a 30% tariff increase on products from the European Union. La Libre Belgique hopes that the EU will be able to resist the American president, who, according to the newspaper, is showing less and less hope.
On August 1 , Donald Trump would thus pull the trigger of an economic revolver aimed at the European Union, laden with 30% tariffs. The announcement, in the midst of final negotiations between the United States and the EU, is brutal, theatrical—typically Trumpian. But behind the "noise" of social media messages and threats, there is less strategy than spasms, less economic and diplomatic skill than wandering.
Trump, once again, is transforming international trade into a scene from a Western—himself a self-proclaimed sheriff, rattling off tariffs one after the other. Alas, the scene no longer holds any illusions. By constantly changing the rules midstream, pushing back deadlines, and twisting the facts, he has rendered his words meaningless. Multilateralism, so patiently constructed, is being swept away by the whims of a man convinced that the world is negotiated through improvised arm wrestling.
But the truth, as always, resists. The alleged trade imbalance with Europe is not one: a slight surplus for the EU on goods, offset by a deficit on the services side, for a barely positive balance in the end. Nothing to justify such an economic war, other than a president's obsession with proving, against all odds, that he is in control. A pa
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Courrier International
