Donald Trump has not yet revealed anything about how he wants to manage the relationship between the United States and the European Union (EU). But no one, in Brussels, Paris, Rome, Warsaw or Berlin, imagines that they will emerge unscathed from the former president’s return to the White House, on January 20, 2025. Apart from Viktor Orban’s Hungary, his first term traumatized the Twenty-seventh and the second promises to be even more difficult.
In 2016, Europeans had a difficult time confronting Donald Trump. Since then, the far right, often Trumpist, has progressed in the Old Continent and Giorgia Meloni and her post-fascist Fratelli d’Italia party have come to power in Italy. As for Germany and France, in the midst of an economic and political crisis, they are more weakened than ever on the community stage.
The issue seems all the less obvious since, this time, the president-elect can count on a Republican majority in Congress and a Supreme Court that favors him.
From his plans for Europe we know what Donald Trump promised during his campaign. he wants “peace” in Ukraine, even if that means that part of its territory remains in the hands of Russia. He hopes that the Twenty-seven will pay for their security and no longer depend on the United States to guarantee it. On the economic level, he has an obsession: reducing the US trade deficit which, as far as the EU is concerned, amounted to almost 160 billion euros in 2023.
Avoid the worst
For this reason, Donald Trump intends to impose new customs duties of 10% on European imports and especially targets German cars that, in his opinion, sell too well in his country. The father of the motto “Make America Great Again” He also wants to overtax Chinese imports by 60%, which would push China to get rid of its excess industrial capacity in the Old Continent, already in full economic decline.
Waiting to know more about Donald Trump’s intentions, Europeans are preparing for all scenarios. In fact, there is a scenario that would allow them to avoid the worst. “If Trump understands that the United States also has a lot to lose in a trade war with Europe, he will prefer to enter into a transactional approach with the Europeans” before putting his campaign promises to music, explains a European diplomat. An increase in customs duties would certainly cost the EU between 0.5 and 1.5 points of gross domestic product (GDP) growth, but would also generate inflation on the other side of the Atlantic.
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