Hello!
Many of you, notably at the FIC/InCyber (the Lille cybersecurity forum), asked me what I thought of Trump's tariffs and their impact on Europe.
PS: The panel on Europe Under Pressure, the conference I took part in, is now online (at 2:04:51)
Roundtable moderated by Charlotte Kan, with Jonathan R. Cohen, American diplomat and former U.S. Deputy Representative to the United Nations under the Trump administration, Yves Leterme, former Prime Minister of Belgium, Gérard Araud, former French ambassador to the United States and to the United Nations, and Augustin de Romanet, chairman of Paris Europlace and former head of ADP and of the Caisse des Dépôts.
To understand the tariff question, you have to look at Stephen Miran, a figure still little known in Europe. A former adviser at the Treasury under Trump, he is now chairman of the United States Council of Economic Advisers.
In a 41-page document titled “A User’s Guide to Restructuring the Global Trading System”, he laid the groundwork for a plan to reshape global trade to the benefit of the United States. That text has become the foundation of American tariff strategy.
The return of tariffs as a weapon of targeted pressure
Unlike the across-the-board measures of 2018, Miran proposes a strategy based on selective tariff strikes. The aim is to identify each trading partner's vulnerabilities in order to force them to renegotiate bilateral agreements, bypassing multilateral structures.
It is worth remembering that tariffs are often called import taxes. So it is a new tax that the Trump administration has put in place.
A weaker dollar to regain competitiveness
The text argues for a weak-dollar policy, not through a direct announcement but through indirect adjustments and targeted accusations of currency manipulation against other countries. The goal: improve the trade balance while preserving the dollar's strategic role in the global system.
The end of multilateralism, a return to bilateral deals under duress
Miran regards the WTO and global agreements as ineffective. He advocates a return to bilateral negotiations, faster and lopsided, in which the United States would dictate its terms. A logic of the permanent deal, transactional, with no stable framework.
Volatility as a political tool
One of the central points of the text is the acceptance (indeed the deliberate use) of economic volatility. For Miran, shocks create the conditions for a rebuilding to America's advantage. It is a logic of openly embraced disruption.
A bet on American centrality
The strategy rests on the idea that the size of the American market, the power of the dollar and military superiority provide enough leverage to impose new rules. It is a unilateral vision, which assumes that the rest of the world remains captive to the system dominated by the United States.
But several major flaws appear in this project:
Read the full article
Sign up now to read the full article and get access to all articles for paying subscribers only.
