New customs duties against China, increase in taxes on certain European products, negotiations with Canada and Mexico … to make its economic greatness to America, Donald Trump Account for paying your business partners to pay … but also using the pricing tool to impose its diplomatic choices. A method that is not new. In this series, the magnifying glass is interested in past trade wars, from which we could learn some lessons for today, with Sébastien Jean, professor of economics at the National Conservatory of Arts and Crafts, holder of the Jean-Baptiste Say chair of industrial economics.
Episode 1: customs duties and great depression
Since his return to the White House, Donald Trump has put the commercial wars back to the fore. Throughout his campaign, he promised to use them to protect the American economy. “If I am elected president, I will impose customs duties of 100, 200, 2,000 %. I will impose the highest customs duties in history,” he said in October 2024. What, according to the Republican, promoting companies that make in the United States, attracting new ones, and protecting the portfolio of citizens. Now in charge of the country, the American president has held his promise.
Trying to preserve the trade balance of the United States with taxes for partners, this is also what happened in the 1930s. A troubled economic period that is told in this episode.
But first, how to define a trade war? “There is no precise definition, explains Sébastien Jean, but in the concept of trade war, there is the idea of hostility between countries which results in trade restrictions of exchanges, bilaterally, therefore of each country targeting the partner, with a certain tension, a certain hostility, often a goal behind economic pressure, even political”.
We were in the late 1920s. The First World War has just ended. Reconstruction is underway in Europe. But after the ruins, the Roaring Twenties, economic instability settles and especially in the United States.
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“The art of trade war” is an original series of the magnifying glass, written and presented by Charlotte Baris, mounted by Solène Alifat, produced by Quentin Bresson and Jules Krot.
Credits : Boursorama, CBS, Forbes, Ina
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To go further:
Reciprocal customs duties: Donald Trump’s new commercial weapon
Customs duties: the reality of figures behind the threats of Donald Trump against Europe
“Taiwan stolen us”: behind the outrages of Donald Trump, the concern for the flea