For Europeans, Donald Trump would be unpredictable and versatile: a cowboy which, according to its moods, would threaten the old continent of prohibitive customs rights: 25 % additional taxes on European steel and aluminum exported to the United States since March 12, and perhaps 200 %, tomorrow, on all wines and spirits. What if this trade war was in reality only the prelude to a very thoughtful plan, which simply aims to redraw global monetary and financial architecture? The idea seems crazy. However, it begins to take shape in the staff of major commercial banks and global financial institutions.
In recent days, the Planet Finance has only one deadline in mind: the Mar-A-Lago agreements, in reference to the holiday residence of the American president. There, under Florida’s sun, Donald Trump dreams of twisting his arm to the West to give birth to a new monetary order. The objective: to sustainably weaken the dollar to relaunch American exports, reindustrialize the country, reduce the abyssal trade deficit and at the end of the race, restructure the huge public debt of the United States. Clearly, bringing out a competitive and lightened America from the fat of its debt.
A previous one under Ronald Reagan
After all, the country has already, in the past, folds its partners. On September 22, 1985, in the Salons of the Plaza Hotel in New York, Ronald Reagan succeeded in convincing Japan, Western Germany, France and Great Britain to intervene on the foreign exchange market to strengthen their own currencies and thus weaken the greenback.
This time, the plan is even wider. He was bounded by two of the brains closest to the American president. His secretary to the Treasury, Scott Bessent, who evokes an agreement as important as that of Bretton Woods in the aftermath of the Second World War. And the head of economic advisers, Stephen Miran, who detailed the stages of this monetary big bang in a long article published last November.
First act: trigger a business war fierce enough to force the targets to sit at the negotiation table. Second act: force them to sell greenback to depreciate the American currency in exchange for relief of customs taxes. Third act: bring them to exchange part of the US state obligations for centenary titles, so as to lighten the short -term debt service.
There remains a question: why would Europe agree to comply with Trump’s wishes? Because the violence of the attack will begin to seriously weigh on activity in the EU. The Banque de France has just revised its growth forecasts for the tricolor economy in 2025, only 0.7 %. This brake falls at the worst time: France and Europe need fresh growth and money to finance their own security … after the defection of the American ally. Skilled, the cowboy.