00:00With us, the French Prime Minister is describing the signing of a new trade deal with the United
00:15States as a dark day for Europe. François Beirut condemns an imbalanced deal where EU
00:22imports are subject to 15% tariffs with no retaliation, he says, on US exports into Europe.
00:29Well, let's debate the situation. Could Europe have done better is possibly the question we're posing.
00:34Douglas Herbert is here with us to kick us off on this conversation.
00:38He, of course, François Beirut's international affairs commentator.
00:43What is the situation, Doug? I mean, because we have some saying that Europe is getting the best deal they can under difficult circumstances,
00:51but François Beirut complaining and calling it a dark day. How do you see it?
00:55Well, first of all, you used the precise term, some say, right? Now, the EU, right? Ursula von der Leyen is the one who sat with Donald Trump at his golf resort and hammered out the steel.
01:06The EU is 27 separate members. Each of those 27 members, Mark, has their own divergent economic interests.
01:14They are all essentially fighting their own corners. I know, yes, the EU, we know that we know the talk. It's a big single market.
01:23The EU in Brussels does make this type of trade policy for, on behalf of the bloc, is still subject to approval.
01:32Legally, she could have just rammed this through, but she's going to go back and ask for their approval.
01:35Now, here's where it gets interesting. You mentioned France. France, it is France's prime minister who's calling it a dark day for Europe.
01:42He's speaking for France. He's speaking for some other Europeans, but not all of them.
01:47Let's remember a couple of things that I think are just important for the context.
01:50First of all, the biggest exporters to the United States of goods in the European Union, it's not France.
01:58Germany comes first. Ireland is second. Italy is third.
02:04France is less exposed than those three other countries, Mark.
02:08However, you can argue it has a lot to complain about.
02:13And what I mean by that, it's not just that the French are known for griping all the time.
02:17The thing that they are most worried about is that they are the EU's biggest agricultural producer.
02:23Agricultural products are going to be hit potentially hard by this tariff deal, as are, what's the other thing you think of when you think France?
02:39Also wines and spirits. That sector too stands to be hard hit.
02:43So one of the reasons beyond the polarization in France and the political landscape being fractured and split every which way is the fact that they do have a valid argument that they could get a raw deal compared to the others.
02:57Germany, at least with its cars, that's its biggest export, at least got something locked in that will sort of semi-protect some of its big automakers like Audi, BMW.
03:08Indeed. Donald Trump making much of his German roots as well as his Scottish roots when he was speaking with Keir Starmer at his Turnberry golf course in Scotland a little earlier.
03:17Scottish on his mother's side. The German aspect comes from his father's side of the family.
03:21Drumpf, I think, was the original.
03:22That was the original.
03:24They changed it, didn't they? They changed it from the German Drumpf to Trump.
03:27Let's bring in now for more. Doug, you'll be back in a second. Don't panic.
03:40So thank you for taking the time to pull up and park and talk to us here on France 24.
03:44We always appreciate your participation.
03:47I'm wondering where you stand on this situation.
03:49François Bayroux saying it's a dark day for Europe.
03:52He's talking about submission in terms of what this deal is doing.
03:56What's your perspective?
03:59Well, it is the same.
04:00And thank you for having me, even though I'm on the move indeed.
04:04Yes, I share the Prime Minister's concerns.
04:07I'm appalled.
04:08I'm absolutely appalled.
04:09I mean, this is a deal that we're trying to get for temporary stability in the name of a couple of lobbies that are very active, of course, in Brussels, trying to get the best deal for themselves.
04:25And that is at the expense of the overall of what the EU should be standing for.
04:32To start with, I do not know why we need to have these tariffs.
04:37And we see Donald Trump is not just using them for economic reasons.
04:41With Brazil, for instance, it's a political tool.
04:45And it is just a very asymmetric agreement, you know, because if we were to have an overall agreement, then we should have put services and goods in the same and see if indeed it's totally unbalanced and maybe try to kind of reach out, you know, some kind of consensus.
05:07But it is not the case.
05:09So I think, you know, looking at the details of what we are actually giving up in the names of indeed reducing, you know, the tariffs on spirits and the car industry and whatever, it is, I think, our own autonomy that we're giving up because we're buying, you know, billions of gas and oil from the Americans.
05:34We're going to buy billions, well, hundreds of billions of army equipment and all of that just to appease daddy, because it's not Uncle Sam anymore, you know, he's got much closer now.
05:48And it is daddy that we are calling upon whenever we, you know, we're in trouble.
05:54So, no, I'm appalled.
05:56I think, you know, we're just showing our witness, our overall witness, that we are just a group of countries just trying to fight for our own little interest, national interest and losing out the big picture.
06:09So I'm actually quite angry with what's happening.
06:12Let me clarify the reference to daddy, of course, is Mark Rutter of NATO referring to Donald Trump as daddy when they were famously sat side by side discussing the issues regarding Ukraine.
06:21And also, Ellen was talking there about the tariffs that Donald Trump was threatening Brazil with, basically saying, stop the trial of Jair Bolsonaro, the far right former president of Brazil and big admirer of Donald Trump.
06:36Otherwise, we'll put big sanctions on your goods.
06:40There's a sense there in some people's minds.
06:42And Ellen has just touched on this, Doug, that Trump is doing this because he can.
06:46Yeah, he's using tariffs.
06:48Because he can.
06:49Because he can.
06:50And no one can stop him.
06:51He has the economic might.
06:54You could still say the supremacy.
06:55Obviously, it's not what it was.
06:57It once was.
06:58There are other up and coming economic competitors.
07:01But he can still use these tariffs as a cudgel.
07:05And that's exactly what he has done.
07:07He's used it as a cudgel to ram through what he would say is his America first reindustrialization policy, bringing manufacturing back to America, bringing jobs back to America, and basically trying to level.
07:19What he says is a very unlevel playing field.
07:21Let's remember, it is true that the EU has imported or supplied nearly a fifth of all of the U.S. goods imports last year.
07:3220% of all worldwide, everything that the U.S. imported was brought in by the EU.
07:39So, in that sense, EU had what you call a commercial, what's the opposite of deficit is surplus.
07:46I was going to say the opposite of deficit is surplus.
07:48Big surplus, bringing in a lot of goods ahead of, you might say, the immediate neighbors, ahead of Mexico, ahead of the trade with Canada, even ahead with the trade with China, not to mention the United Kingdom, a little lower down on that list.
08:01In return, what's interesting about this is European goods are not, at least for now, going to face any higher tariffs coming in to Europe.
08:11So, we just heard the senator speaking about asymmetric, lopsided.
08:15It is very lopsided.
08:17Essentially, the EU is taking big lumps here because some people would say they cried uncle.
08:23They caved because they just think they don't have a choice.
08:26Their first concern was protecting their own industries, protecting their interests.
08:29As you said, Trump is doing this because he can, and the EU, the defenders of this deal would say, are accepting these terms because they must.
08:50You say you're convinced that it could be better.
08:53The EU Trade Commissioner, Maros Sefcovic, said this is clearly the best deal under very difficult circumstances.
09:01Clearly, you agree.
09:02How would you have perhaps done it better, do you think?
09:04What should Europe have done?
09:08Well, I do not agree that we must accept it.
09:12But we, indeed, we are in a difficult situation.
09:18We're caught up between the short term, which is, indeed, making sure that our American ally stays with us for the war in Ukraine.
09:28But we have to remember that now we're actually purchasing all the American equipment that are being sent to Ukraine, where before the Americans were sending it themselves.
09:40So now we're actually participating in the American industry and financing it as well.
09:45But we are trying to buy time.
09:48So the why in Ukraine is one reason why we need to appease, if you like, well, Donald Trump and make sure that he stays with us.
09:58But in the long term, I think we have a lot to lose because what we're doing in the name of saving some corners of our economy and some of our industries and producers.
10:12Indeed, we are giving up on the overall, as I said, industrialization of Europe that we need because the 750 billions we're going to spend in buying carbohydrates from the United States,
10:32the 600 billions that are being put forward as army equipment that we're going to purchase, it's all European taxpayers' money going to finance the development of American industry.
10:49And the almighty power of the United States is not that great if Donald Trump has rightly decided that it needs to be strengthened because it is actually surviving because the Europeans are also, through their savings, financing the American debt.
11:13So all of that is for Europe to be just the one continent, that is to develop and finance the American industry so that it can, you know, keep up in the race it engages with with China.
11:28And I do not believe that it is our role.
11:31I think we have better things to do.
11:33And the rest of the world is actually looking at us.
11:37We were envied by a lot of countries.
11:40We were trusted.
11:43And now I see on the, you know, the political field that in the Middle East, the Europeans are not called upon in the negotiations.
11:53You know, the tensions between Cambodia and Thailand were not resolved with the help of the Europeans, which is what we have been doing so far.
12:03So I think we're just losing our place, our overall place, just for, you know, economic reasons.
12:10And Donald Trump is doing a very good job.
12:14He has set himself to objectives.
12:16But I do not believe that it is our role, and that's all we're reduced to, to actually, you know, make sure that the manner in which he does it or the aims that he wants to reach are for us to support.
12:31That's all.
12:33So, Ellen, sorry to cut across you, should there have been then some kind of retaliation in terms of tariffs?
12:40Should France have been slapped?
12:41Go ahead.
12:42Well, what we should have done is to look at an overall package.
12:47As I said, indeed, we have a surplus for goods, but we have a huge debt in services coming from the United States.
12:56Look at the overall package and say, well, can we find the balance?
12:59Maybe there are some sectors, indeed, that needs to be, you know, realigned or whatever.
13:05But just this overall 15% tariff is just mad.
13:09And indeed, I was in Washington last March, and I met the Minister of Finance there.
13:15And what he said was extremely interesting.
13:19He said, look, Donald Trump is going to apply tariffs, but we go for the highest, and we'll always get more than we actually deserve in the end.
13:28Because, you know, if we start at 100, you'll feel that if you pay, you know, 50, that you have done a good deal, when in fact, you know, at 25, that would have been a good deal for you.
13:40But we'll always get more.
13:41And that's why Donald Trump is at, and he's quite successful, because we're showing weaknesses, you know, we're not showing unity, and we're just counting on the short term rather than looking at the overall picture and playing the long term.
