Trade opening periods have always been followed by protectionist puffs. The trade war can even follow historical alliances which were believed to be unwanish. France has had the bitter experience several times in the 19th centurye century.
After being allied in the war of independence against the British, France and the United States experienced a period of great tension at the end of the French Revolution. In 1794, the United States signed a commercial treaty with the United Kingdom while France of the Convention “Remove the slavery of the Negroes” And requests the reimbursement of the loans contracted by the Americans.
In replying to the confiscations of French cargoes on American boats by the English, the French block American ships in ports and corsairs attack ships at sea. Historians evoke this period by speaking of “Almost war” Franco-American. The declaration of war will be narrowly avoided! Allies one day, enemies the next day.
In the 1860s, the time was for bilateral trade treaties with European neighbors, especially between former allies. France and Italy fought Austria and market together towards Italian unity, France and England were allied against Russia during the Crimean War in 1856. Nothing more normal than these military alliances were followed by a trade treaty. But tensions come back to the end of the century. French Filatures and Agricultural Producers make Solférino and Sébastopol forget. France begins a customs war with these two countries and adopted the Méline tariff on agricultural products, marking the return of protectionism. French rooster, national symbol in the 19th centurye century, faces Ricardo, the theorist for free exchange. Allies one day, enemies the next day.
After defense, trade is a crucial challenge for European solidarity and cohesion.
European blindness concerning the evolution of trade policies is comparable to that on the rise of Russian imperial pressure. How many precursor signals accumulate for ten years? The list is long. COVVID showed the dangers of interdependence of value chains. States were no longer able to ensure health security because the active ingredients of drugs are often made elsewhere. Message: Watch out for the liberalization of exchanges.
Brexit is another signal. Who could have believed that a state dares to leave the framework and the commercial space of the European Union? As if there was something more important even than trade flows. Furthermore, how can we not see the growing protest of European public opinion with regard to international trade negotiations? The blocking of the World Trade Organization (the United States has not appointed the judges of the appeal body since 2019) was something other than an adventure.
Finally, the breakdown of negotiations with the European Union (EU) decided by the United States (in 2018) and Australia (in 2023) demonstrated that trade agreements were not inevitable. All signals were there. But who was paying attention to it? The Directorate General for Trade and Economic Safety, the European Commission’s “flagship” as it was formerly called it, is populated by disciples of international competition, defending the CAP of free exchange with the assurance of Thomas Andrews, the architect of the Titanic. And too bad if the iceberg is straight ahead.
Panic on board. The trade war will do damage. Overbidding between measures and countermeasures, graduated reprisals, embezzlement of traffic (because Chinese exports, deprived of the American market will go to the EU), can be disastrous. The European Union must identify the fragile sectors. France is generally less exposed to American measures than other countries (Germany or Italy for example) because its dependence on the American market is relatively low. But it presents points of vulnerability.
Wine, cognac, Roquefort are the three usual targets of commercial conflicts with the United States for the past fifty years. The chicken war (1960s), hormone beef (1980s), and even the Boeing/Airbus conflict (1990s) resulted in targeted increases on these products. Taxed at 100 or even 200% (a price trip), not a product is resistant. Not to mention the lost bullets. The silky Lyon who made silk ribbons, at the forefront of fashion in America in the first half of the 19th centurye century, were destroyed by the naval blockade of the American Civil War (see the evolution of Scarlett’s costumes in You might as well take the wind). These national weaknesses must be identified. After defense, trade is a crucial challenge for European solidarity and cohesion.
A glow of hope, however. Admittedly, the periods of opening of the trade have always been followed by protectionist puffs but they do not last. They stop by themselves, often from the inside, by those who initiated them. The inflation that returns (customs duties increase the interior prices), the markets that close, the multinationals that complain, are not long in pressure.
In coherence with isolationism after the World War, the United States decided on a first increase in customs duties in 1922 followed by another more massive more in 1930. World trade plunged. Two years later, the American election was on economics and trade. The Roosevelt democrat who displays a return to liberalism largely prevails over Hoover. In 2018, President Trump, already engaged in a trade war, had been sensitive to a letter of 600 American bosses asking him to develop his customs policy. The call had been heard. This time, a reversal – a flexibility – is not excluded. Even likely. The billionaire partner of the American president who recognized that the increase in customs duties would increase the price of cars and was not good for business.
Trump wants to director of the world. This is not new. “What we do in terms of commercial policy is the test of our ability to the management of the world”commented on the American Secretary of State for the opening of GATT negotiations during Kennedy Round in 1961. But if the American president has only Moscow and Tel Aviv for Allies, the objective will be difficult to achieve. By worrying, without the finality being clear, America can only irritate and could bring out a coalition against it. And then, American politics remains at the mercy of a grain of sand. In this case, the grain takes the form of an egg shell. The surge in the price of the egg box causes concern about the rise in prices that customs duties will amplify. After the rooster against Ricardo, does the hen make Trump back?
