Darken, threaten, retract, then strike harder. This is the Trump signature. In two letters published yesterday on its Truth Social network, the President of the United States announced the taxation of customs duties of 30 % on products from the European Union and Mexico. Date of entry into force: August 1. Pretexts of this new poker stroke: drugs, in the Mexican case, and the commercial imbalance for Brussels.
Since the famous Liberation Day, this April day when, from the Rose Garden of the White House, Donald Trump had promised to “Rebuilding American industry”denouncing “Flying leaders (our) Jobs, ransacking crooks (our) Factory and foreign looters destroying the American dream, formerly so beautiful ”the president’s line has never stopped zigzag. In barely three months, he promised prices “Reasonable”Then “Massifs”before announcing some and then postponing them, to increase them better afterwards. A theater of which he alone has the key.
This Saturday, July 12, the new salvo was launched by a Donald Trump in permanent campaign against “Injustice” World exchanges. Against the European Union, he still hardens the tone: after having threatened in April to apply 20 % of customs duties, then announced at the end of May a 50 % increase (with a theoretical effect scheduled for June 1, but ultimately delayed), it contrasts at … 30 %. With this warning: if Brussels retaliated, he promises to add the possible European surcharge to that announced yesterday. This could bring customs duties to summits.
Mexico, for its part, sees the price on its exports from 25 % to 30 %. In question, according to Donald Trump, the role of cartels in drug trafficking to the United States. “Mexico helped me secure the border, but what Mexico has done is not enough”he wrote in his letter addressed to his counterpart Claudia Sheinbaum. That said, he did not specify whether these rights would also apply to goods already covered by the Canada-United States-Mexico (ACEUM) agreement, which excluded part. These goods represent only a minority of exchanges, but the detail, again, remained vague.
In Brussels, some had believed in a thaw. Grosse error!
These announcements have been part of a familiar scenario since January, alternating chin and breaks. In May, he called the president of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen to give her until July 9 “To start serious negotiations”. In Brussels, some had then believed in a thaw. Grosse error!
The day after this call, on May 21, Donald Trump had showered these hopes on Truth Social: “The European Union has benefited from the United States for decades with unfair business practices. They close their markets, we leave ours wide open. This must stop, and this will be the case. EU’s dilatory tactics will no longer work. It’s time to pay. »» These words had frozen the atmosphere at the European Commission.
Meanwhile, he has also inflicted on Asian partners from surcharge ranging from 20 % to 40 %-except for Brazil, which he reserved a sudden increase of 50 %. Last Thursday, he notified 35 % rights in Ottawa on Canadian products, also for August 1. A waltz of figures and promises which leaves its Pantois interlocutors. Observers, they see in this strategy a typically Trumpian way of obtaining concessions: creating a crisis, inflating the threat, then negotiating down to present themselves as a Savior. But since the Liberation Day, its unpredictability has continued to fuel the distrust of partners and markets.
In Washington, some allies are already concerned about the consequences for the American economy: industrialists rumble, and the markets fear an uncontrolled climbing. Yesterday, the president of the European Commission warned that these customs rights “Disturbing essential transatlantic supply chains, to the detriment of companies and consumers on both sides of the Atlantic”. President Von der Leyen also brandished the threat of reprisals, without specifying its nature or the calendar. Donald Trump, he persists in showing that this showdown is played out on his conditions.
