French President Emmanuel Macron called on major domestic industries to suspend planned investments in the United States, escalating tensions over US President Donald Trump’s sweeping new tariffs.
During a crisis meeting in Paris on Wednesday, Macron warned business leaders that capitulating to US pressure would undermine European unity and embolden Washington’s “economic aggression.”
Addressing executives from aerospace, chemicals, healthcare, and spirits sectors, industries hardest hit by Trump’s 10% baseline tariff, Macron argued that French firms investing in the US now would signal weakness.
If the response to the tariffs just imposed by the American administration is to make immediate concessions or announce investments in order to negotiate exemptions, that is a very bad idea. What message would it send if major European players started investing billions of euros in the American economy at a time when they are hitting us?
The appeal underscores Macron’s push for a coordinated EU response. Prime Minister François Bayrou and industry representatives from groups like MEDEF (France’s largest employer federation) attended the closed-door meeting, though no binding measures were agreed.
Europe’s reaction to US tariffs
Meanwhile, European activists and politicians lambasted Trump’s tariffs, calling for resistance to US economic pressure. Former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont stated that the “era of globalisation” had been changed to an era of “uncertain development.” He also called for the formation of “an anti-Trump front” to resist American pressure.
The fracture that Trump is causing in the world order will take its toll, and it will not be cheap. The era of globalisation as we have understood it so far is ending and a new one is beginning, one of uncertain development. Although Trump strives to demonstrate certainty in his policy (he is doing what he said he would do, so there are no surprises), the effect he causes is that of global uncertainty of colossal dimensions. […] I mean, it would be great to articulate an anti-Trump front, but our evil does not begin with American decisions.
French Les Républicains party’s François-Xavier Bellamy called for a tough response to Trump’s tariffs.
The best response to Donald Trump is to finally free up economic activity in our countries. This is my fight in Europe: our proposal to immediately suspend CSRD and CS3D, the most harmful directives for our businesses, was adopted this week.
Another French politician, Nicolas Dupont-Aignan, leader of the party Debout la France (France Arise), also declared the end of “unfair globalisation” and called for taking advantage of the current state of affairs to reinforce the French economy.
The hysterical reactions to Trump’s tariffs obscure the essential fact of the day: the beginning of the end of the savage and unfair globalisation that has destroyed our jobs! Let us seize this opportunity to protect our agriculture and our industry.
Former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis, however, blamed Trump for speculating on tariffs to disrupt relations between the EU and the UK.
It is evident, isn’t it? A major motivation for keeping the UK tariff at only 10% when the EU is subjected to 20% (in addition to the much larger US-EU trade deficit) is Trump’s keen interest of making it harder for Starmer to cosy up to the EU.
Meanwhile, former Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte accused incumbent PM Giorgia Meloni of not responding to Trump’s policies.
Meloni lets us know that she has cancelled all her engagements today to deal with the duties, which will hit Italian businesses and workers hard. But since the duties had been announced for some time, what has she done in all these months? She told us that her visit to Trump was imminent, that they would soon welcome her to the White House. In the meantime, Italian families and businesses are suffering and will suffer even more from this economic tsunami that is hitting our country.
