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segunda-feira, 31 de março de 2025
Trump Is About to Bet the Economy on a Theory That Makes No Sense
Opinion
Guest Essay
Trump Is
About to Bet the Economy on a Theory That Makes No Sense
March 31,
2025
By Jason
Furman
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/31/opinion/trump-tariffs-economy.html
Dr. Furman,
a contributing Opinion writer, is a professor of the practice of economic
policy at Harvard University and was chairman of the White House Council of
Economic Advisers from 2013 to 17.
My local
bookstore has been taking advantage of me for years. I have run a trade
deficit, giving it money with nothing but books in return. At the same time I
have been taking advantage of my employer, running a trade surplus with it as
it gives me a salary with nothing but educational services in exchange.
Thinking
that way about the kinds of exchanges we all engage in is obviously absurd. But
that’s precisely the reasoning behind the “reciprocal tariffs” President Trump
is expected to announce this week. The details have not yet come into view, but
if he does follow through, it’s clear the plan would add to what are already
the nation’s highest tariffs since the 1940s. Their effect will be lower
economic growth, higher inflation, higher unemployment, the destruction of
wealth and a tax increase on American families. It will deal a blow to the
rules underlying the global trading system and further empower China.
Mr. Trump
has cycled through numerous rationales for tariffs: They will raise revenues,
with foreigners footing the bill. They will help American manufacturers and
national security. They will provide leverage against Mexican fentanyl and
Canadian sovereignty. In all of these cases there is a bit of truth and a lot
of falsehood.
But the one
argument Mr. Trump has returned to again and again is that other countries are
taking advantage of the United States. He measures the degree to which they are
doing so by the magnitude of our trade deficit with them — that is, how much
more money we spend on another country’s goods and services than we get from
selling it our goods and services.
In this
reckoning, the reason those deficits arise is that other countries erect
tariffs and other trade barriers against the United States. It follows from
this analysis that the solution is to reciprocate by erecting our own tariffs,
which will either protect the United States or else get other countries to
lower their barriers, either way reducing or eliminating the trade deficits.
Every step
in this chain of reasoning is wrong.
Start with
the fact that imports are good, not bad. They offer consumers greater variety,
such as avocados from Mexico, lower prices on cars from South Korea or greater
quality, including Champagne from France. American companies are able to offer
better products at lower prices and be globally competitive because they use
imported steel, auto parts and precision machinery. Moreover, importing these
items frees us up to devote more of our production and employment to higher
productivity and higher-wage jobs, including in export industries such as
aerospace and software design.
Running
bilateral trade deficits is generally not an indication of a problem or an
abuse. In recent years the United States exported more to Brazil than it
imported, a fact that had more to do with Brazil’s appetite for American oil
and airplanes than any trade barriers. In fact, Brazil levies an average tariff
of 6 percent on goods coming from the United States, well in excess of the 1
percent levied by the United States on imports from Brazil. Same in reverse for
the United States and France: We import more than we export despite having a
higher tariff on their goods than they do on ours.
In fact,
there is generally no correlation between a country’s tariff levels and its
overall trade balance. A particularly clear example is the 27 countries in the
European Union, which have identical tariffs and other trade policies but range
from trade deficits to trade surpluses.
So if
tariffs don’t create trade deficits, what does? The answer has to do with
whether a country saves its money or invests it, in things like factories,
infrastructure and research. The United States invests more than it saves,
which has helped fuel our enviable productivity and growth. To fill the gap, we
attract money from overseas. Foreign investors exchange their euros, yen and
yuan for dollars to invest in the United States. We can then use those euros,
yen and yuan to buy more of what we want from Europe, Japan and China than we
sell them. Voilà, a deficit.
What then
will these reciprocal tariffs do? They will lessen the overall volume of trade.
The United States will import less because foreign goods and services will
become more expensive. It will also export less, because the tariffs that other
countries erect against us will make our stuff more expensive for them.
Even if
other countries don’t retaliate against our tariffs with a slew of their own,
the situation is still bad. Take automobile tariffs on Mexico. They would cause
Americans to buy fewer cars from that country, so we would need fewer pesos,
the things with which you buy their cars. As demand for Mexican currency goes
down, so does its value relative to the dollar. But a strong dollar makes it
more expensive for foreign countries to buy our exports. Either way, less
trade, which would be bad for both consumers and workers. (As an aside, if the
tariffs do succeed in meaningfully lowering trade deficits it would most likely
be because they caused a recession, bringing down the amount U.S. consumers buy
or businesses invest.)
If all
reciprocal tariffs are bad in theory, however, Mr. Trump’s seem likely to be
even worse in practice. That’s because he’s not just looking to even things out
with other countries by raising U.S. tariffs by a percentage point or two, the
current difference in tariff rates between the United States and many of its
trade partners. Instead, he has been cherry-picking examples of goods where
other countries have higher tariffs than the United States while ignoring the
many cases where the reverse is true.
The
president even claimed that foreign value-added taxes, or VATs, discriminate
against American exports. It is true that these VATs apply to American goods,
from oranges to cars to cosmetics. But they apply in equal measure to European
oranges and cars and cosmetics. They don’t discriminate against the United
States or any other country. And demanding that European countries change them
would mean demanding that they alter core aspects of their tax systems. Why
would they ever agree?
The
consequences of this are serious. In Mr. Trump’s first term he raised average
tariffs by about 1.5 percentage points. With all of the trade measures he has
already carried out this year, they have gone up another six percentage points
— and reciprocal tariffs could add much more. All told, the tariff increases in
the first four months of his latest trade war are likely to be five to 10 times
as large as those he imposed in the four years of his first term.
There’s been
a lot of talk about whether that will crash the economy altogether. The
enormous increase in business uncertainty that tariffs have engendered means
anything could happen. Goldman Sachs, however, estimates that given this new
round of tariffs, economic growth will decline by about 0.5 percentage point
(largely because imported goods are only one-tenth of U.S. gross domestic
product). Not a huge number on its own, though it translates to about $1,000
per household but it would push up inflation by a similar magnitude. All of
this is on top of the harm done by all the tariffs that have already been
announced.
Lower-income
families will pay a higher fraction of their income in tariffs, but the revenue
will very likely go to tax cuts skewed to high-income households. The stock
market has already lost more than $3 trillion since Mr. Trump first dialed up
his tariff threats in February. The losses could grow over time as the United
States increasingly distances itself from the benefits of imports, exports and
global supply chains.
The
geopolitical realignment this will help engender may be even more profound. The
United States has leverage vis-à-vis Canada and Mexico because we are their
main trade partner. But China is the largest trading partner for a majority of
countries in the world. Give these countries a choice between economic
relations with the United States and with China, they would probably choose the
latter in a heartbeat. And where economic relations go, political relations
will follow. This week’s tariffs are another step toward hurting the U.S.
economy and creating a geopolitical system that increasingly has China at its
center.
Jason
Furman, a contributing Opinion writer, is a professor of the practice of
economic policy at Harvard University and was chairman of the White House
Council of Economic Advisers from 2013 to 2017.
As Tensions Escalate Between Trump and Europe, Meloni Is Caught in the Middle
As
Tensions Escalate Between Trump and Europe, Meloni Is Caught in the Middle
Each new
crisis, whether over Ukraine or tariffs, has made the Italian prime minister’s
balancing act that much harder.
Neil
MacFarquhar Emma Bubola
By Neil
MacFarquhar and Emma Bubola
Reporting
from Rome
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/31/world/europe/italy-meloni-trump-europe-tensions.html
March 31,
2025, 12:01 a.m. ET
Amid raucous
questioning by opposition members in Italy’s Parliament this month, Prime
Minister Giorgia Meloni noted that she had been asked repeatedly: “Are you with
Europe or with the United States?”
The prime
minister responded that she was always with Italy and by extension, Europe. “I
don’t blindly follow Europe or the United States,” she said, adding, “But I’m
also for the unity of the West, and I think that is necessary for both Europe
and Italy.”
Just a
couple of months ago, when President Trump was inaugurated, Ms. Meloni seemed
perfectly positioned to be a bridge between him and Europe. She was the only
European leader at his inauguration, matched his hostility toward liberal
ideals, befriended Elon Musk and seemed eager to land the role.
Instead, as
tensions between Europe and Washington escalate, she finds herself caught in
the middle, balancing her ideological affinity with Mr. Trump with the need for
Italy to help bolster the continent’s security and economy.
It is not
clear that Mr. Trump, who is openly antagonistic toward Europe, wants a bridge.
In addition, the leaders of Britain and France, both outweighing Italy as
nuclear powers, have sought the role of liaison between Europe and the White
House for themselves.
As Europe
ratchets up military spending and girds for a potential trade war, Ms. Meloni
continues to preach pragmatism while trying to avoid choosing sides. The
balancing act could become harder to sustain.
Each new
crisis with Mr. Trump — over a possible peace deal with Russia, over NATO, over
tariffs — further underscores Ms. Meloni’s eroding middle position, analysts
said.
“She is
cleverly not taking sides until she is obliged to do it and hoping that she is
never obliged to do it,” said Giovanni Orsina, the head of the political
science department at Luiss Guido Carli University in Rome.
But he
added, “If the Atlantic alliance gets into greater stress and there is a
distancing between the U.S. and Europe, this position will be more difficult to
hold.”
Once a
fringe firebrand with political roots in a party born from the ashes of
fascism, Ms. Meloni has cast herself as a credible leader in Europe, largely
thanks to her unwavering support for Ukraine and NATO.
Domestically,
she has thrown occasional bones to her hard-line base, including by introducing
a “universal” ban on surrogacy, while simultaneously steering a conservative
fiscal policy that allayed the worst fears of European leaders. Some called
that pragmatism, while others accused her of “doppiezza,” Italian for
“duplicity.”
On the
international stage, Ms. Meloni has become a bundle of contradictions: an
Italian nationalist seemingly in tune with Mr. Trump’s hard-right international
movement leading a country whose lot is inextricably tied to the fate of
Europe.
In the past
couple of months, her main tool in not alienating either Washington or Europe
was a studied silence, or when that proved impossible, anodyne calls for the
West to maintain its strength through its traditional unity.
Now, she
increasingly tries to have it both ways.
Ms. Meloni’s
comments to the Italian Senate before a late March summit of European leaders
in Brussels were some of her most extensive about the multiple controversies
stirred up by Mr. Trump and his administration.
A staunch
supporter of Ukraine, Ms. Meloni endorsed Mr. Trump’s effort to negotiate a
cease-fire, calling it “a first significant step in a path that must lead to a
just and lasting peace for Ukraine.”
But while
she has upheld her commitment to providing security guarantees to Ukraine, she
has been less vocally supportive of President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine.
After he was
berated by Mr. Trump and Vice President JD Vance in the Oval Office in early
March, she did not, like other European leaders, rebuke the president and
express her support for Mr. Zelensky. Instead, Ms. Meloni responded to the
fiery exchange by calling for a U.S.-Europe summit. No such meeting occurred.
She has
criticized the response of some European leaders to the Trump administration as
“a bit too political” and suggested that it is “childish” to expect Italy to
have to chose between Europe and the United States. While Italy would gladly
help Europe avoid a confrontation, she said in an interview with The Financial
Times published on Friday: “I’m not interested in saying, ‘I’m the one in the
middle, I’m a protagonist.’ Not now. The stakes are too high.”
Unlike
France and Britain, which have led the effort to organize a European force for
Ukraine, Italy rejected the idea of deploying its troops.
As Mr. Trump
threatens to withdraw the U.S. commitment to Europe, Italy has largely backed
the idea that Europe must invest in rearming. Although Ms. Meloni has described
the United States as Italy’s closest ally, Rome’s relatively low military
spending might create friction with Mr. Trump. It falls below the 2 percent of
gross domestic product required by NATO guidelines, not to mention the 5
percent pushed by Washington. One of her coalition partners adamantly opposes
any increase.
On tariffs,
Ms. Meloni has called for moderation and negotiation. She warned that
retaliatory tariffs could set off a “vicious circle” in which everyone loses,
driving up inflation and restricting economic growth.
“I am
convinced that we need to work concretely and with pragmatism to find common
ground and avoid a trade war that would not benefit anyone,” Ms. Meloni said in
Parliament.
For now, Ms.
Meloni’s relations with Mr. Trump and his team seem good, even if no White
House visit has been announced.
Mr. Trump
praised Ms. Meloni in late February, calling her “a wonderful woman” and noting
that “Italy has got very strong leadership.” Ms. Meloni reposted Mr. Trump’s
comments on X.
In turn, she
has lauded both Mr. Trump and Mr. Vance, as she did in a live address by video
at the annual CPAC conference near Washington, where she has been a regular
speaker for years. She underscored their shared political agenda and
characterized Mr. Trump’s re-election as a major development in the rise of
global conservatism.
How long her
balancing act can last is the question dogging her.
In the
seaside town of Viareggio, Italy, the spectacular annual carnival parade is
famous for political satire. This year one float featured a 50-foot statue of
the prime minister. The float’s creator, Alessandro Avanzini, had dressed the
figure of Ms. Meloni in a pink suit jacket, swaying inside a pair of oversize
gray jodhpurs of the kind once favored by the fascist dictator Benito
Mussolini.
Mr. Avanzini
said that he had left it deliberately unclear whether Ms. Meloni was donning
the jodhpurs or shedding them. Various spectators said that accurately
reflected the current political discussion in Italy surrounding the ambiguity
at which the prime minister excels.
“She is very
clever at understanding when she has to wear them,” said Stefania Giusti, 48,
an agricultural project manager.
“When she is
meeting Trump, she puts them on, but when she goes to Brussels, she takes them
off,” Ms. Giusti said. “But I do not think that she can go on like this for
long.”
Elizabeth
Djinis and Virginia DiGaetano contributed reporting.
Neil
MacFarquhar has been a Times reporter since 1995, writing about a range of
topics from war to politics to the arts, both internationally and in the United
States. More about Neil MacFarquhar
Emma Bubola
is a Times reporter based in Rome. More about Emma Bubola
Greenland PM Hits Back At US President Trump As VP JD Vance Visits Military Base On Island / Vance’s posturing in Greenland was not just morally wrong. It was strategically disastrous
Vance’s
posturing in Greenland was not just morally wrong. It was strategically
disastrous
Timothy
Snyder
Thanks to
Trump’s administration, the US could soon have to fight wars to get things
that, just a few weeks ago, were there for the asking
Mon 31 Mar
2025 06.00 BST
No one would
allow that he could not see these much-admired clothes; because, in doing so,
he would have declared himself either a simpleton or unfit of his office.”
– Hans
Christian Andersen, The Emperor’s New Clothes
Elon Musk
and Donald Trump inherited a state with unprecedented power and functionality,
and are taking it apart. They also inherited a set of alliances and
relationships that underpinned the largest economy in world history. This too
they are breaking.
The American
vice-president, JD Vance, visited a US base in Greenland for three hours on
Friday, along with his wife. National security adviser Mike Waltz and his wife
also went along. Fresh from using an unsafe social media platform to carry out
an entirely unnecessary group chat in which they leaked sensitive data about an
ongoing military attack to a reporter, and thereby allegedly breaking the law,
Waltz and Vance perhaps hoped to change the subject by tagging along on a trip
that was initially billed as Vance’s wife watching a dogsled race.
The overall
context was Trump’s persistent claim that America must take Greenland, which is
an autonomous region of Denmark. The original plan had been that Usha Vance
would visit Greenlanders, apparently on the logic that the second lady would be
an effective animatrice of colonial subjection; but none of them wanted to see
her, and Greenland’s businesses refused to serve as a backdrop to photo ops or
even to serve the uninvited Americans. So, instead, the US couples made a very
quick visit to Pituffik space base. (Pete Hegseth, another group chatter,
stayed home; but his wife was in the news as well, as an unorthodox participant
in sensitive military discussions.)
At the base,
in the far north of the island, the US visitors had pictures taken of
themselves and ate lunch with servicemen and women. They treated the base as
the backdrop to a press conference where they could say things they already
thought; nothing was experienced, nothing was learned, nothing sensible was
said. Vance, who never left the base, and has never before visited Greenland,
was quite sure how Greenlanders should live. He made a political appeal to
Greenlanders, none of whom was present, or anywhere near him. He claimed that
Denmark was not protecting the security of Greenlanders in the Arctic, and that
the US would. Greenland should therefore join the US.
It takes
some patience to unwind all of the nonsense here.
The base at
Pituffik (formerly Thule) only exists because Denmark permitted the US to build
it at a sensitive time. It has served for decades as a central part of the US’s
nuclear armoury and then as an early-warning system against Soviet and then
Russian nuclear attack.
When Vance
says that Denmark is not protecting Greenland and the base, he is wishing away
generations of cooperation, as well as the Nato alliance itself. Denmark was a
founding member of Nato, and it is already the US’s job to defend Denmark and
Greenland, just as it is Denmark’s job (as with other members) to defend them
in return.
Americans
might chuckle at that idea, but such arrogance is unwarranted. We are the only
ones ever to have invoked article 5, the mutual defence obligation of the Nato
treaty, after 9/11; and our European allies did respond. Per capita, almost as
many Danish soldiers were killed in the Afghan war as were American soldiers.
Do we remember them? Thank them?
The threat
in the Arctic invoked by Vance is Russia; and of course defending against a
Russian attack is the Nato mission. But right now the US is supporting Russia
in its war against Ukraine. No one is doing more to contain the Russian threat
than Ukraine. Indeed, Ukraine is in effect fulfilling the entire Nato mission,
right now, by absorbing a huge Russian attack. But Vance opposes helping
Ukraine, spreads Russian propaganda about Ukraine, and is best known for
yelling at Ukraine’s president in the Oval Office. On the base, Vance blamed
the killing in Ukraine on Joe Biden rather than on Vladimir Putin, which is
grotesque. Vance claimed that there is now an energy ceasefire in place between
Russia and Ukraine; in fact, Russia violated it immediately. Russia is now
preparing a massive spring offensive against Ukraine; the response of
Musk-Trump has been to ignore this larger reality completely while allowing
Biden-era aid to Ukraine to come to an end. Denmark, meanwhile, has given more
than four times as much aid to Ukraine, per capita, than the US.
Greenland,
Denmark and the US have been enmeshed in complex and effective security
arrangements, touching on the gravest scenarios, for the better part of a
century. Arctic security, an issue discovered by Trump and Vance very recently,
was a preoccuption for decades during and after the cold war. There are fewer
than 200 Americans at Pituffik now, where once there were 10,000; there is only
that one US base on the island where once there were a dozen; but that is
American policy, not Denmark’s fault.
We really do
have a problem taking responsibility. The US has fallen well behind its allies
and its rivals in the Arctic, in part because members of Vance’s political
party denied for decades the reality of global warming, which has made it hard
for the US navy to persuade Congress of the need to commission icebreaker
ships. The US only has two functional Arctic icebreakers; the Biden
administration was intending to cooperate with Canada, which has some, and with
Finland, which builds lots, in order to compete with Russia, which has the
most. That common plan would have allowed the US to surpass Russia in
icebreaking capacity. This is one of countless examples of how cooperation with
Nato allies benefits the US. It is not clear what will happen with that arrangement
now that Trump and Vance define Canada, like Denmark, as a rival or even as an
enemy. Presumably it will break down, leaving Russia dominant.
As with
everything Musk-Trump does, however, the cui bono question about imperialism in
Greenland is easy to answer: Russia benefits. Putin cannot contain his delight
with US imperialism over Greenland. In generating artificial crises in
relations with both Denmark and Canada, America’s two closest allies these last
80 years, the Trump people cut America loose from security gains and create a
chaos in which Russia benefits.
The American
imperialism directed towards Denmark and Canada is not just morally wrong. It
is strategically disastrous. The US has nothing to gain from it, and much to
lose. There is nothing that Americans cannot get from Denmark or Canada through
alliance. The very existence of the base at Pituffik shows that. Within the
atmosphere of friendship that has prevailed the last 80 years, all of the
mineral resources of Canada and Greenland can be traded for on good terms, or
for that matter explored by American companies. The only way to put all of this
easy access in doubt was to follow the course that Musk-Trump have chosen:
trade wars with Canada and Europe, and the threat of actual wars and
annexations. Musk and Trump are creating the bloodily moronic situation in
which the US will have to fight wars to get the things that, just a few weeks
ago, were there for the asking. And, of course, wars rarely turn out the way
one expects.
Much effort
is spent trying to extract a doctrine from all this. But there is none. It is
just senselessness that benefits America’s enemies. Hans Christian Andersen
told the unforgettable tale of the naked emperor. In Greenland, what we saw was
American imperialism with no clothes. Naked and vain.
As a parting
shot, Vance told Greenlanders that life with the US would be better than with
Denmark. Danish officials have been too diplomatic to answer directly the
insults directed at them from their own territory during an uninvited visit by
imperialist hotheads. Let me though just note a few possible replies, off the
top of my head. The comparison between life in the US and life in Denmark is
not just polemical. Musk-Trump treat Europe as though it were some decadent
abyss, and propose that alliances with dictatorships would somehow be better.
But Europe is not only home to our traditional allies; it is an enviable zone
of democracy, wealth and prosperity with which it benefits us to have good
relations, and from which we can sometimes learn.
So consider.
The US is 24th in the world in the happiness rankings. Not bad. But Denmark is
No 2 (after Finland). On a scale of 1 to 100, Freedom House ranks Denmark 97
and the US 84 on freedom – and the US will drop a great deal this year. An
American is about 10 times more likely to be incarcerated than a Dane. Danes
have access to universal and essentially free healthcare; Americans spend a
huge amount of money to be sick more often and to be treated worse when they
are. Danes on average live four years longer than Americans. In Denmark,
university education is free; the average balance owed by the tens of millions
of Americans who hold student debt in the US is about $40,000. Danish parents
share a year of paid parental leave. In the US, one parent might get 12 weeks
of unpaid leave. Denmark has children’s story writer Hans Christian Andersen.
The US has children’s story writer JD Vance. American children are about twice
as likely as Danish children to die before the age of five.
Timothy
Snyder is the Richard C Levin professor of history at Yale University, and the
chair in modern European history supported by the Temerty endowment for
Ukrainian studies at the University of Toronto. His latest book is On Freedom.
This post originally appeared on his Substack, Thinking About
Marine Le Pen verdict throws far-right party into chaos two years before election
Analysis
Marine Le
Pen verdict throws far-right party into chaos two years before election
Angelique
Chrisafis
in Paris
Sentence is
blow to National Rally even though the core of Le Pen’s electorate is likely to
rally behind her
Mon 31 Mar
2025 13.07 BST
It is a
political earthquake that is almost certain to end Marine Le Pen’s ambitions
for the 2027 presidential election and throws her far-right party into chaos
just as it was setting its sights on taking power in France.
Barred from
running for political office for five years with immediate effect after being
convicted of embezzling European funds for her party, Le Pen’s political future
is now thrown into doubt. She will most likely not be able to mount a fourth
campaign for the presidency in two years’ time.
The
conviction of Le Pen and 24 other party members for embezzlement of European
parliament funds is a huge blow to a far-right party that has long tried to
present itself as the honest, squeaky-clean alternative to old-school
politicians with their hands in the till.
“Head high,
clean hands” was once a slogan of the far-right, anti-immigration Front
National – now renamed the National Rally – to distance itself from what it
called greedy traditional politicians’ crooked ways. Le Pen’s punishment –
which she had earlier likened to a “political death sentence” – is all the more
personally damaging because she began her political career styling herself as
anti-corruption crusader, saying in a TV debate in 2004: “Everyone has taken
money from the till except the Front National … The French are sick of seeing
politicians embezzling money. It’s scandalous.”
The party
president, Jordan Bardella, 29, who is popular but inexperienced, could now
become a replacement figure for the presidential race, but nothing is certain.
As the party met for crisis talks on Monday, he said French democracy had been
“executed” by the “unjust” verdict.
Le Pen and
fellow party workers have been found guilty of serious charges: the systematic
embezzlement of European taxpayer funds.
The court
found that between 2004 and 2016, the anti-immigration party set up an
extensive system of fraud in which they took money intended solely for European
parliament assistants to instead pay staff who worked for the party at its head
office in France – including a bodyguard and private secretary. The scam cost
the European taxpayer – which includes French taxpayers – at least €4m
(£3.35m).
The French
state prosecutor had told the court that Le Pen’s party treated the European
parliament like a “cash cow” and set up a centralised, highly organised “war
machine” to embezzle European funds, which they used to illegally finance the
cash-strapped party “in violation of all basic rules”.
During the
two-month trial, the court heard how the embezzlement system was brazen. In an
email to Marine Le Pen, one party worker, who was supposed to have been
employed as a parliamentary assistant for four months, wrote: “I’d like to see
the European parliament and that would also allow me to meet the member of the
European parliament I’m attached to.”
He had
apparently never been to the European parliament, where he was supposed to
work. Another supposed parliamentary assistant made only one phone call to his
member of European parliament in 11 months, and there were no documents showing
any work took place.
The party
showed “contempt for public funds that came from the pockets of their own
voters”, a French state prosecutor had told the court during the trial.
But it is
likely that the core of Le Pen’s electorate will rally behind her. The verdict
and sentence could even boost political support for the far right. Le Pen was
not accused of personally lining her pockets, but of channelling the money to
the party. She has routinely called the case a political attack on her, saying
judges wanted her “political death”.
The guilty
verdict and strong sentence, barring her from running for office with immediate
effect, serves her victimisation narrative that there is an elite out to get
her and her party and stop her political career.
Senior party
figures said, before the verdicts, that convictions could actually increase
support for the National Rally in France. Certainly, the US’s Donald Trump has
shown you can keep political support even with a criminal conviction.
For more
than a decade, Le Pen has tried to make her far-right, anti-immigration party
appear mainstream and respectable to a wider electorate. That endeavour is now
damaged, even if she positions herself as a victim.
Le Pen’s
ideas – including increasing police numbers and banning the Muslim headscarf in
all public places – have steadily gained support among the French public, and
the National Rally party emerged as the single largest party in parliament
after the 2024 snap parliamentary elections, even if a left alliance and
tactical voting held them back.
The question
now is how the 50-year-old party prepares for the 2027 presidential race if it
must run for the first time without a Le Pen as a candidate – without Marine,
or her late father, Jean-Marie Le Pen.
Marine Le Pen barred from running for French president
Marine Le
Pen barred from running for French president
The sentence
was delivered after the French far-right icon was found guilty of embezzling
European Parliament funds.
March 31,
2025 11:14 am CET
By Victor
Goury-Laffont
PARIS —
Marine Le Pen’s plans to run for the French presidency in 2027 were dealt a
likely fatal blow Monday after she was found guilty of embezzling European
Parliament funds and deemed ineligible to stand in elections for the next five
years.
Given
surging support for her far-right National Rally party, 2027 had widely been
seen as a potential breakthrough moment for her populist anti-migration agenda,
and several polls put her as a strong contender to succeed Emmanuel Macron in
the Elysée Palace.
The decision
would appear to open the door for Jordan Bardella, the National Rally president
and Le Pen’s heir-apparent, to become the flag-bearer for the far right and run
for the presidency.
Le Pen and
24 other codefendants were accused of illicitly siphoning European Parliament
funds to pay for party employees who seldom or never dealt with affairs in
Brussels or Strasbourg. The court estimated that the accused had over 12 years
embezzled more than €4 million, €474,000 of which Le Pen was held personally
responsible for as an MEP.
All but one
of them, an accountant, were found guilty and handed a mix of fines,
ineligibility bans and suspended prison sentences. The National Rally party was
also found guilty and handed a €2 million fine, though that can be reduced by
€1 million if it does not repeat the crime.
The harshest
punishment was reserved for Le Pen, as she was convicted of criminal activity
both as a former MEP and then running it as party’s ex-president.
Prosecutors
took the extraordinary step of asking the three-judge panel presiding over the
case to immediately enact Le Pen’s ban on running for office rather than wait
until the appeals process has concluded, which is usually the norm in France.
The judges
agreed, citing the gravity of Le Pen’s crime. They also fined her €100,000 and
sentenced to four years in prison, two of which were suspended — but those
penalties could be delayed by a possible appeal.
“Today, it’s
not just Marine Le Pen who is unfairly condemned: It’s French democracy that is
being executed,” said Bardella.
Bardella and
other far-right figures in France and across Europe were quick to condemn the
verdict. Some, like Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, even weighed in
before Le Pen’s sentence was announced. The Kremlin deplored a “violation of
democratic norms” and Italy’s far-right Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini
condemned the verdict as a “a bad film” and a “declaration of war by Brussels.”
The
defendants repeatedly professed their innocence over the course of the
four-month-long trial, but the prosecution presented damning evidence against
them — including text messages from one parliamentary assistant who, months
after being hired, asked to be introduced to the MEP he was supposedly working
for.
Le Pen and
the National Rally knew the trial would be a thorn in their side but were
relatively sanguine about the process. And the allegations, for now, have done
little to affect either Le Pen or the National Rally’s popularity.
The
defendants were, however, taken aback when prosecutors in November asked that
immediate ineligibility bans of various lengths be handed to all of the
defendants.
If Le Pen is
unable to successfully appeal the verdict before the next presidential
election, the National Rally is likely to look to Bardella, the party’s loyal
29-year-old president, to step in.
Indeed, in a
possible prediction of her own departure from the scene, she told the BFMTV
network just before the sentence that Bardella had “the capacity to be
president of the Republic.”
And while
the future of populist nationalism in France has rarely looked brighter than it
does today, Bardella’s lack of experience during a high-profile presidential
campaign has fueled skepticism — even within his own ranks — about whether he
is up to the task.
This story
is being updated.
Reactions to the ruling against Le Pen.
1m ago
13.04 BST
Far-right
politician Marion Maréchal, a European Parliament lawmaker and Marine Le Pen’s
niece, just accused judges for “thinking about themselves as above the …
people” and claimed that Le Pen was only found guilty because she was on course
to lead the nationalists to victory.
Here is
her post in full:
For
decades, the national camp and our family have suffered every blow, every
attack, every injustice. Judges, thinking of themselves as above the sovereign
people, have decided to execute in a court of law the woman they were never
able to force back at the ballot box.
@MLP_officiel
led our side on the path to victory. This is her only culpability, and that is
why she is condemned. No one on the right should pretend to be satisfied with
this judgment. There was François Fillon before, Marine Le Pen today. Who will
be next? I am more than ever by Marine’s side at this time.
52m ago
12.14 BST
Le Pen ruling 'bad film' and 'declaration of war
by Brussels,' Italy's Salvini says
Another Le Pen ally, Italy’s deputy prime
minister Matteo Salvini, has just offered his reaction to the court’s decision
too.
In a social media post, he said:
Those who fear the judgment of the voters often
find reassurance in the judgment of the courts.
In Paris they condemned Marine Le Pen and would
like to exclude her from political life. A bad film that we are also seeing in
other countries such as Romania.
The one against @MLP_officiel is a declaration of
war by Brussels, at a time when the warlike impulses of von der Leyen and
Macron are frightening.
We will not be intimidated, we will not stop:
full speed ahead my friend!
20m ago
12.49 BST
Dutch far-right leader Wilders criticises 'tough'
verdict, says he hopes Le Pen will win appeal and become president
The Dutch far-right leader Geert Wilders joins
Hungary’s Orbán and Italy’s Salvini as he issues a critical reaction to the
ruling against Le Pen.
He says:
I am shocked by the incredible [sic!] tough
verdict against @MLP_officiel. I support and believe in her for the full 100%
and I trust she will win the appeal and become President of France.
Marine Le Pen Found Guilty of Embezzlement by French Court
Marine Le
Pen Found Guilty of Embezzlement by French Court
The ruling
immediately bars her from running for public office for five years,
jeopardizing the far-right leader’s plans to run for president in 2027.
Aurelien
Breeden Roger Cohen
By Aurelien
Breeden and Roger Cohen
Reporting
from Paris
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/31/world/europe/france-marine-le-pen-embezzlement-trial.html
March 31,
2025
Updated 6:54
a.m. ET
Marine Le
Pen, the French far-right leader, was found guilty of embezzlement by a
criminal court in Paris on Monday and immediately barred from running for
public office for five years, jeopardizing her plans to compete in France’s
2027 presidential election.
The verdict
was a major blow to the perennial presidential ambitions of Ms. Le Pen, an
anti-immigrant, nationalist politician who was widely seen as a front-runner in
the 2027 race, despite three past failed bids. Looking grim, murmuring
“incredible,” she walked briskly out of the courtroom before the judges had
given her exact sentence.
She did not
address the dozens of camera crews that awaited her outside the courtroom, but
she was expected to speak on French television later on Monday evening.
Ms. Le Pen,
56, was also sentenced to four years in prison, with two of those years
suspended, and a fine of 100,000 euros, or about $108,000. She has long denied
any wrongdoing in the case, which involved accusations that her party, the
National Rally, illegally used several million euros in European Parliament
funds for party expenses between 2004 and 2016.
She is
widely expected to appeal the verdict, which would put most of her sentence on
hold. But the court ruled that her electoral ineligibility is effective
immediately. As a result, only a successful appeal before the 2027 deadline to
enter the race would allow her to run.
That is not
impossible, but it will be difficult. The appeals process is slow in France,
and even if a new trial took take place before the 2027 election, it is unclear
whether the prosecution’s case would be overturned.
Some
politicians, even those opposed to Ms. Le Pen, have expressed fears that
barring her from competing in the presidential race, despite her party’s
popularity, could fuel a democratic crisis. The ruling does nothing to prevent
her protégé, Jordan Bardella, 29, from running.
The verdict
could usher in a period of renewed political turmoil if Ms. Le Pen decides to
lash out against France’s fragile government or if anger spills over into the
streets. The government struggled to pass a budget this year and could still be
toppled at any time by lawmakers in the lower house, where Ms. Le Pen’s party
is the single largest.
This is a
developing story. Please check back for updates.
Roger Cohen
is the Paris Bureau chief for The Times, covering France and beyond. He has
reported on wars in Lebanon, Bosnia and Ukraine, and between Israel and Gaza,
in more than four decades as a journalist. At The Times, he has been a
correspondent, foreign editor and columnist. More about Roger Cohen
How Trump Supercharged Distrust, Driving U.S. Allies Away
News
Analysis
How Trump
Supercharged Distrust, Driving U.S. Allies Away
Trust is
very hard to build and easy to destroy. America and its partners are caught in
a spiral of distrust.
Damien Cave
By Damien
Cave
Damien Cave
covers global affairs and is The Times’s Vietnam bureau chief.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/31/world/trump-foreign-policy-trust.html
March 31,
2025
Updated 1:59
a.m. ET
The F-35, a
fifth-generation fighter, was developed in partnership with eight countries,
making it a model of international cooperation. When President Trump introduced
its successor, the F-47, he praised its strengths — and said the version sold
to allies would be deliberately downgraded.
That made
sense, Mr. Trump said last week, “because someday, maybe they’re not our
allies.”
For many
countries wedded to the United States, his remark confirmed a related
conclusion: that America can no longer be trusted. Even nations not yet
directly affected can see where things are heading, as Mr. Trump threatens
allies’ economies, their defense partnerships and even their sovereignty.
For now,
they are negotiating to minimize the pain from blow after blow, including a
broad round of tariffs expected in April. But at the same time, they are
pulling back. Preparing for intimidation to be a lasting feature of U.S.
relations, they are trying to go their own way.
A few
examples:
Canada made
a $4.2 billion deal with Australia this month to develop cutting-edge radar and
announced that it was in talks to take part in the European Union’s military
buildup.
Portugal and
other NATO nations are reconsidering plans to buy F-35s, fearing American
control over parts and software.
Negotiations
over a free trade and technology deal between the European Union and India have
suddenly accelerated after years of delays.
Brazil is
not only increasing trade with China, it’s doing it in China’s currency,
sidelining the dollar.
Several
allies, including Poland, South Korea and Australia, are even discussing
whether to build or secure access to nuclear weapons for their own protection.
Some degree
of distancing from the United States had already been in motion as other
countries became wealthier, more capable and less convinced that American
centrality would be permanent. But the past few months of Trump 2.0 have
supercharged the process.
History and
psychology help explain why. Few forces have such a powerful, long-lasting
impact on geopolitics as distrust, according to social scientists who study
international relations. It has repeatedly poisoned negotiations in the
Palestinian-Israeli conflict. It kept Cold War tensions between the United
States and the Soviet Union burning for decades.
So-called
realists — who see international relations as an amoral contest between
self-interested states — argue that trust should always be assessed with
skepticism, because believing in good intentions is risky.
But Mr.
Trump has sparked more than cautious suspicion. His own distrust of allies,
evident in his zero-sum belief that gains for others are losses for America,
has been reciprocated. What it’s created is familiar — a distrust spiral. If
you think the other person (or country) is not trustworthy, you’re more likely
to break rules and contracts without shame, studies show, reinforcing a
partner’s own distrust, leading to more aggression or reduced interaction.
“Trust is
fragile,” Paul Slovic, a psychologist at the University of Oregon, wrote in a
seminal 1993 study on risk, trust and democracy. “It is typically created
rather slowly, but it can be destroyed in an instant — by a single mishap or
mistake.”
In Mr.
Trump’s case, allies point to a sustained assault.
His tariffs
on imports from Mexico and Canada, which ignored the North American free trade
deal that he signed during his first term, stunned America’s neighbors.
His threats
to make Canada an American state and send the U.S. military into Mexico to go
after drug cartels were brash intrusions on sovereignty, not unlike his demands
for Greenland and the Panama Canal. His blaming of Ukraine for the war that
Russia started further alienated allies, forcing them to ask: Is the United
States a defender of dictators or democracy?
Relatively
quickly, they have determined that even if Mr. Trump’s boldest proposals — like
turning Gaza into a Mideast Riviera — are fantasies, the trend lines point in
the same direction: toward a world order less like the Olympics and more like
Ultimate Fighting.
Perhaps no
country is more shocked than Canada. It shares the world’s largest undefended
border with the United States, despite their wide disparity in military
strength. Why? Because Canadians trusted America. Now, in large part, they do
not.
Mark Carney,
Canada’s prime minister, said on Thursday that his country’s traditional
relationship with the United States was “over.”
“Trump has
violated the deep assumption in Canadian foreign policy that the U.S. is an
inherently trustworthy nation,” said Brian Rathbun, a global affairs professor
at the University of Toronto. “That is very threatening to basic Canadian
interests in trade and security, leading it to cast around for alternatives.”
Economic
patriotism is somewhat new for Canada, but it has given rise to a Buy Canadian
movement that urges consumers to shun American products and stocks. Canadians
are also canceling U.S. holidays in large numbers.
More
significant in the longer term, Mr. Trump’s threats have forged a surprising
consensus around a policy that had been contentious or ignored: that Canada
should be building pipelines, ports and other infrastructure east to west, not
north to south, to reduce its reliance on the United States and push its
resources outward to Asia and Europe.
Europe is
further ahead in this process. After the U.S. election, the European Union
finalized a trade deal with South American countries to create one of the
world’s largest trade zones, and it has worked toward closer trade ties with
India, South Africa, South Korea and Mexico.
Japan,
America’s largest ally in Asia, has also been prioritizing new markets in the
global south, where fast-growing economies like Vietnam’s offer new customers.
“There has
been the emerging perception in Japan that we definitely have to change the
portfolio of our investments,” said Ken Jimbo, a professor of international
politics and security at Keio University in Tokyo. For the current
administration and those that follow, he added, “we have to adjust our
expectations of the American alliance.”
On the
defense front, what some call “de-Americanization” is more challenging. This is
especially true in Asia, where there is no NATO equivalent, and reliance on
American support has somewhat stunted the militaries of countries that the
United States has promised to defend (Japan, South Korea and the Philippines).
On Friday,
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was in Manila, promising to “truly prioritize
and shift to this region.” But many of America’s partners are now working
together without the United States, signing reciprocal access agreements for
each other’s troops and building new coalitions to deter China as much as they
can.
Europe, too,
is years away from being able to fully defend itself without the help of U.S.
weaponry and technology. Yet in response to the Trump administration’s tariffs,
threats and general disdain — as in the leaked Signal chat in which Mr. Hegseth
called Europe “pathetic” — the European Union recently announced plans to ramp
up military spending. That includes a 150 billion euro loan program to finance
defense investment.
The
27-nation European Union is also increasingly collaborating with two
nonmembers, Britain and Norway, on defending Ukraine and on other strategic
defense priorities.
For some
countries, none of this is quite enough. Poland’s prime minister, Donald Tusk,
told Parliament in early March that Poland would explore gaining access to
nuclear weapons, fearing that Mr. Trump could not be trusted to defend a fellow
NATO nation fully.
“This is a
race for security,” Mr. Tusk said.
In February,
South Korea’s foreign minister, Cho Tae-yul, told the National Assembly that
building nuclear weapons was “not on the table, but that doesn’t necessarily
mean that it is off the table either.” By some estimates, both South Korea and
Japan have the technical know-how to develop nuclear weapons in less than two
months.
Bilihari
Kausikan, a former Singaporean diplomat, said that a little mistrust can lead
to healthy caution, noting that Asia has been skeptical of America since the
Vietnam War. He said the end result of the Trump era could be “a more
diversified world, with more maneuvering space” and a less dominant United
States.
But for now,
distrust is spreading. Experts said it would take years and a slew of costly
trust-building efforts to bring America together with allies, new or old, for
anything long-term.
“Trust is
difficult to create and easy to lose,” said Deborah Welch Larson, a political
scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles who wrote a book about
mistrust’s Cold War role. She added, “Mistrust of the United States’ intentions
and motives is growing day by day.”
Reporting
was contributed by Matina Stevis-Gridneff from Toronto, Jeanna Smialek from
Brussels, Choe Sang-Hun from Seoul and Martin Fackler from Tokyo.
Damien Cave
leads The Times’s new bureau in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, covering shifts in
power across Asia and the wider world. More about Damien Cave
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