By Eric Vandenbroeck and co-workers

The French president, Emmanuel Macron, said Trump’s decision to impose tariffs was “brutal and unfounded” and appeared to call for a suspension of French investment in the US until the tariffs were clarified.

“Future investments, investments announced in the last weeks, should be suspended for a time for as long as the situation with the United States is not clarified,” Macron told a meeting of French companies.

Suggesting measures against the US tech sector “where the United States benefits enormously from Europe”, he added: “Nothing is excluded. All the elements are on the table.”

His comments followed President Trump's imposing sweeping new levies on US trading partners, including a 20 percent tariff on imports from the European Union.

"Future investments, investments announced in the last weeks, should be suspended for a time for as long as the situation with the United States is not clarified," Macron told a meeting of French companies also attended by French ministers and Prime Minister François Bayrou.

Macron predicted Americans will be "weaker and poorer" after Trump's tariff announcement, which he described as "brutal and unfounded" and which would have a "massive impact" on the European economy.

He also called on Europe to stand together in terms of their response, warning against any unilateral action. Macron reaffirmed the French government's position that a "European response" would come in "two stages".

One would come in mid-April, addressing US tariffs already in place on steel and aluminum. The second would be at the end of April and would be a "more massive response to the tariffs announced" after a study of the sectors affected and coordination with EU member states.

Following the meeting, the head of French employers' federation Medef, Patrick Martin, stressed the situation was "very serious".

Everyone agreed that "the world is re-organizing, trade relations are becoming extremely brutal, threats are accumulating, and the time has come more than ever to accelerate simplification and competitiveness at the European and French level," he said.

Echoing Macron's call, business group France Industry, which represents dozens of major companies, said French manufacturers affected by US tariffs should consider firing back one way or another, including by suspending investment projects in the US.

"To negotiate from a position of strength, we have to be ready to use all the levers at our disposal," said the group's president, Alexandre Saubot.

French Overseas Minister Manuel Valls called the US decision to impose different tariffs on France's overseas territories a "deeply political" gesture that reveals an "accumulation of inconsistencies, absurdities and incompetence".

The Paris stock market closed down more than three percent on Thursday after Trump's tariff blitz - the biggest daily decline in two years.

Vincent Vicard, an economist at the Centre for Prospective Studies and International Information, told AFP that Trump's announcements "blow up" the "basic rules of international trade", but that the EU was well equipped to respond.

Among other measures, Vicard said EU countries could reduce its imports of goods and services, reduce market access for American companies, or even suspend property rights for certain companies.

Direct French investments in the United States were worth $370 billion in 2023, making it the fifth-biggest foreign investor in the country, according to the US Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA).

In comparison, US direct investment in France the same year came to $142 billion, according to France's central bank. They are heavily weighted towards the manufacturing sector, France's treasury said.

The American Chamber of Commerce in France told AFP that there are more than 4,200 subsidiaries of French companies operating in the United States. According to the BEA, they employ some 741,000 people.

 

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney Commented Further.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney summed up the global feeling towards US President Donald Trump's freshly rolled out tariff plans with 10 words. It comes as the President has even put tariffs on a place that has no humans and only penguins.

"They are all unjustified, unwarranted, and in our judgment, misguided," Carney said.

"The president's actions will reverberate here in Canada and across the world," Carney said about the reciprocal tariffs that Trump levied, adding that the three different sets of US tariffs "continue to pose significant threats" to Canadian workers and businesses.

Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, lambasted Donald Trump’s “protectionist” tariffs, saying they ran “contrary to the interests of millions of citizens on this side of the Atlantic and in the US, who will unfortunately see their businesses and their purchase power” affected by the measures.

In a strongly worded and defiant speech in Madrid on Thursday morning, Sánchez said the US administration did not distinguish between friends and enemies: “It goes against everyone and everything.”

Sánchez described the tariffs as an “unprecedented” and “unilateral” US attack on Europe, adding: “Returning to the protectionism of the 19th century isn’t a smart way of tackling the challenges of the 21st century.”

Germany’s outgoing chancellor, Olaf Scholz, said Trump’s decision was “fundamentally wrong” and “an attack on a trade system that has created prosperity all round the world, itself an American achievement”.

France’s prime minister, François Bayrou, said the tariffs were “an immense difficulty for Europe” as well as “a catastrophe for the United States and for US citizens”.

The head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, described the tariffs as “a major blow to the world economy” spelling “dire” consequences for millions of people. She said the EU was prepared to respond, but urged Trump to “move from confrontation to negotiation”.

The EU is expected to announce retaliatory tariffs on US consumer and industrial goods – likely to include emblematic products such as orange juice, blue jeans and Harley-Davidson motorbikes – in mid-April, in response to steel and aluminium tariffs previously announced by Trump.

The bloc has yet to respond to the 25% duties on EU cars that entered into force on 3 April, nor the latest round of reciprocal tariffs announced on Trump’s so-called “liberation day”, dubbed variously “inflation day” and “resentment day” by senior politicians in the European parliament.

The US president announced a 20% tariff on EU exports to the US on Wednesday as part of a sweeping set of measures targeting countries around the world, rich and poor, large and small.

Meanwhile, officials are seeking to finalise the first round of retaliatory tariffs amid national lobbying. Behind the scenes, France has been calling for US bourbon to be removed in the hope of avoiding a counter-punch against the French drinks industry. Trump threatened “200%” tariffs on wines, spirits and champagne from France and other EU countries when he learned of the plan to target US whiskey.

The commission is also facing questions over whether it will invoke for the first time the EU’s anti-coercion law, which gives the bloc wide leeway to impose trade and investment restrictions on a foreign government deemed to be using trade as a weapon.

This law could, in theory, allow the EU to revoke banking licences for large US banks, cancel US intellectual property rights in Europe and block US companies from bidding for European government contracts. It can be triggered only by a weighted majority of EU member states – a big step against an old ally many EU governments still hope to win round.

The EU’s most senior trade official, Maroš Šefčovič, is due to speak to his US counterparts on Friday. “We’ll act in a calm, carefully phased, unified way, as we calibrate our response, while allowing adequate time for talks. But we won’t stand idly by, should we be unable to reach a fair deal,” Šefčovič wrote on social media.

EU officials are also bracing for sectoral tariffs to hit three further industries: pharmaceuticals, semiconductors, and lumber.

The tariffs would affect 70% of all EU exports to the US, raising a theoretical €80bn (£67bn) for the US treasury if trade remained unchanged, EU officials estimated.

Von der Leyen said the EU was “preparing for further countermeasures to protect our interests and our businesses if negotiations fail”.

The EU executive is facing growing calls to broaden its armory by targeting US services, from tech companies to big banks.

Bernd Lange, the head of the European parliament’s international trade committee, said: “If we are really on an escalation ladder, then of course we will have a look to the tech giants as well,” although he added: “This is not the first choice.”

The German Social Democrat MEP, who travels to Washington next week, also favours negotiations but is skeptical. He said only Trump and his trade adviser, Peter Navarro, controlled trade policy and until they were willing to take part in discussions, “negotiations are not possible – that’s a mess”.

Lange also suggested Trump’s grievances went far beyond European tariffs, as the US’s stated grievances concerned EU legislation, from food law to safe internet rules. “This is, of course, not the ground for negotiation,” he said.

 

 

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