“Donald Trump acts as an ideal culprit” – L’Express

L’Express is associated with the Viavoice Surveration Institute, HEC Paris and BFM Business to question a representative panel of French and executives on a topical subject. Jeremy Ghez, professor of economics and international affairs at HEC, deciphers the results of this decision -makers’ barometer.

L’Express: Three-quarters of executives and two thirds of French people no longer consider the United States as an ally. Is it a sign of a cyclical anti-foster or deeper anti-Americanism?

Jeremy Ghez: To tell the truth, neither. I wonder, in fact, if the French – and more broadly the Europeans – are not becoming aware of a painful reality: America is simply not the same country as in the past, the one that our generation has believed to know and love. This reaction mainly reflects our own vulnerabilities to us, Europeans, in this globalization. Our worst nightmare is materializing, namely that the United States is no longer as benevolent and open to the international system and Europe. Trump is the catalyst for this feeling. It is a symptom rather than a cause.

To understand, you have to go back to 2006, the year of mid-term elections which ended in a serious setback for the Republicans and George W. Bush. Donald Rumsfeld is sent from the Pentagon, he is replaced by Robert Gates, who will remain defense secretary under Barack Obama. This is what Gates said at the time: “Whoever in my place would encourage an American president to embark on an adventure similar to that of Iraq or Afghanistan should have the brain examined.” The belief that prevailed so far in the Americans that “what is good for the rest of the world is good for the United States” is called into question. Barack Obama is starting to integrate into the American strategy that globalization is a zero-sum game: what America wins, the rest of the world loses it, and vice versa. We then enter the balance of power.

From his first mandate, Trump is more explicit with the “America First”. Four years later, Joe Biden summarizes by declaring that the United States’s foreign policy must be at the service of the American middle classes – there is no longer any consideration of the rest of the world in this speech. Today, Trump acts as an ideal culprit. But it is the embodiment of a political turn started twenty years ago.

In view of this continuum, why are Europe and France so amazed by the first weeks of the Trump presidency?

This amazement is authentic, although a little naive. Until 2015, France was concerned about the unprecedented institutional crisis crossed by the European Union. And then, we often believed – me the first by the way – that the 2016 Donald Trump was an accident in history. We have all reread the novel by Philip Roth, The plot against Americawhich ends in a fishtail. We tell ourselves that it is a bad dream, that the Americans are capable of the worst, but that they will wake up quickly. When Biden is elected in 2020, we all push a relief phew.

Inflation Reduction Act, which it implements, confirms, however, that America is extremely aggressive in its budgetary policy. And that, perhaps, the interests of the old continent are no longer at the heart of its strategic concerns. Today, Europe and France are making their mistake: no, Trump is not a stroke of fate. Hence the extremely rapid developments that are observed at the moment, on debates still taboo yesterday such as nuclear or European defense.

The French are shared on Europe’s ability to compete with the United States, China or Russia. Are you optimistic?

European leaders are trying to reverse the trend. They realize that the future of Ukraine, and by extension of eastern Europe and even from all over Europe, will depend more on what they are going to do than what Donald Trump will say. I am convinced that Trump is obtaining the diplomatic victory he was looking for, that is to say a frost of the conflict. For his personal image, intended for his electorate, and perhaps in the hope of obtaining the Nobel Peace.

The real question today is to know what Europeans project on Ukraine. Will they accept a divided, neutralized country, without territorial integrity, forbidden to enter the European Union or NATO? Or learn the lessons from history and choose Western Germany as a reference, to invest in this country which must certainly fight corruption, but can become a prosperous and democratic state model in the east of Europe? This is the mission of Europeans, the Americans have that doing today.

Do we not tend to exaggerate the weaknesses of Europe?

It was customary to say that, faced with a problem, the United States seeks to innovate, the Chinese to copy and Europeans to regulate. Today, Americans are still innovating, but more in the same way. The Chinese no longer really copy. But the Europeans, undoubtedly, continue to regulate. Casually, it is a form of geopolitical influence. Europe represents around 500 million consumers. To enter our market, the Internet giants, American today, perhaps Chinese tomorrow, must comply with European laws.

This extraterritoriality of the law, highly criticized on the American side, nourishes European power. We also tend to forget our governance know-how. Europe has succeeded in making countries coexist in war, almost every twenty years! Faced with the Americans and Chinese who turn their back on the World Trade Organization, European multilateralism has assets. The treaty being validated between Europe and Mercosur is clearly an anti-Trump agreement.

Is the boycott in France of American brands possible?

I don’t believe. There is a whole part of America that France continues to love, for cultural, historical reasons. Then I expect a counter-offensive of American companies. There are precedents: when Donald Trump retired, during his first mandate from the Paris Agreement, a certain number of firms said that it was a bad decision and that they would not abandon their decarbonization efforts, because it was going on their competitiveness in the face of Chinese competition.

The recent allegiance to Trump of the great tech patterns seems to me to be of pure circumstance. As for the relationship between Elon Musk and him, I keep repeating that she will not last. Because she asks too many questions in terms of ego and conflicts of interest. Except to believe that the rule of law is dead in the United States, this mixture of genres is extremely well codified by law.