It cannot be said that Donald Trump will not have warned or that he is ultimately so unpredictable as that, because this story of customs duties, he has made it a workhorse for decades. In a video exhumed from the meanders of the Internet dating from 1983, he already castigated countries like Japan, where It was very difficult to export American products when the United States was already flooded with Japanese products in Gogo. According to him, it was already a terrible mark of weakness on the part of the first American power.
On April 2, the 47th President of the United States therefore carried out this dreamed plan, which he may not have dared to impose during his first mandate. Stronger, more structured, more determined, Trump has therefore just imposed almost in the whole land of refractory countries to want to rebalance their trade balance with Washington, customs prices of the order of unheard of. Without elegance or nuance, and on the basis of a somewhat obscure economic picture, presented at a press conference at the White House.
Heir to William McKinley, 25th President of the United States whom he now quotes, Trump also relied a lot on the work of Stephan Miran, an American economist who previously served as main adviser in economic policy in the Treasury department from 2020 to 2021, under the direction of Steven Mnuchin. The man is also the main strategist at Hudson Bay Capital Management and co -founder of the Amberwave Partners asset management company.
“Everyone Gloses to know if this radical program will have a positive impact”
Miran is known for its positions in favor of the taxation of significant customs tariffs, suggesting that the United States could benefit from average tariffs of around 20 %, or even up to 50 %, unlike the current rate of 2 %. He believes that it is these rates that could help correct commercial imbalances and strengthen the American manufacturing industry.
A marchandage arrangement to survive?
For weeks, everyone has been going to know if this radical economic program will have a positive impact on the economy of the United States and will straighten it. For days, nothing has been less certain: the scholarship has unscrewed, the countries subject to new taxes rippicening threatening to relaunch American inflation, the Americans have lost much of their savings, and Trump considers that all this is passenger. But there have been millions to demonstrate throughout the country for several days. Is this already the end of the state of grace of the new president?
We must obviously add the anger that has mounted since Elon Musk, via his department of government efficiency (DOGE), has made a big spring cleaning in the American administration, pushing outside the millions of civil servants now unemployed! “You have to suffer to be beautiful”or something like, surely thinks Donald Trump. It is true that in the long term, the objective of this provisional chaos is to naturally devalue the dollar, which it considers far too high, to facilitate American exports all over the world. This is what will lead the United States to shine again, to the detriment of its enemies and itsvassals.
What we see is that those who have stubbornly in front of Trump have still not understood his way of functioning: either we discuss, or we refuse to negotiate, which is a fundamental right, but as Trump is the most powerful man in the world, this does not make much sense for the precise interests of the countries directly affected by his violent measures.
“Our stubbornness deserves a serious reflection in the name of the vital interests of Europeans”
Proof of this is, Canada and Mexico had already started to negotiate and they were not struck more by taxes on April 2. We can reproach Trump his transactionalism and his logic as a carpet merchant, but what choice have we had to enhance our customs duties in an endless or folding shallot race, because we are not in the strength of strength at all?
It’s terrible, but our stubbornness deserves a serious reflection in the name of the vital interests of Europeans. The same goes for the defense budget for the member states of the European Union and members of NATO, which too long have pretended not to hear American threats. What do we gain from resisting it, watching the train pass? Should we see this as a capitulation or a marchandage arrangement to survive? The question remains complete and to everyone’s appreciation, but resistance often costs much for not much.
*Doctor of Political Science, Arab and Geopolitical World Researcher, teacher in international relations at IHECS (Brussels), associated with CNAM Paris (Defense Security Team), at the Institute of Applied Geopolitics Studies (IEGA Paris), the Nordic Center for Conflict Transformation (NCCT Stockholm) and at the Geostrategic Observatory in Geneva (Switzerland).
