France
Criticizes E.U.’s Trade Deal With Trump
Some
French cabinet members have aired their sharp disapproval of the agreement with
the United States. The prime minister called it “a dark day.”
Liz
Alderman
By Liz
Alderman
Liz
Alderman, who writes about business and economics in Europe, reported from
Paris
July 28,
2025
A day
after the European Union and United States struck a trade deal on Sunday, the
French government has come out swinging against the agreement, calling instead
for tariff retaliation and warning that Europe would be politically weakened if
it didn’t hit back.
“It is a
dark day when an alliance of free peoples, gathered to affirm their values and
defend their interests, resolves to submit,” Prime Minister François Bayrou
wrote about the deal, which imposes 15 percent tariffs on European imports to
the United States, but lowers barriers in European countries for American
imports.
France
had been leading a charge in Europe to retaliate against the United States
ahead of the deal, after an earlier threat by President Trump to impose a
punishing 30 percent tariff on the Europeans. Mr. Trump’s on-again, off-again
tariff threats had galvanized President Emmanuel Macron in particular, who said
the European Union had no choice but to present a show of force.
Mr.
Macron has yet to comment on the recent deal, but the sharpened attacks by a
phalanx of his closest cabinet members were in line with his increasingly
confrontational position toward Mr. Trump. Last week, Mr. Macron said his
government would recognize a Palestinian state, setting France apart from the
United States and most of its close allies, and risking friction with Mr.
Trump.
With the
outlines of a trade deal now clearer, Mr. Macron’s government has doubled down.
Benjamin Haddad, France’s minister in charge of European affairs, suggested
that Mr. Trump’s trade deal amounted to a predatory tactic and called for
Europe to activate its powers to tax U.S. digital services, or to exclude
American tech companies from public contracts in Europe.
“The free
trade that has brought shared prosperity to both sides of the Atlantic since
the end of the Second World War is now being rejected by the United States,
which has opted for economic coercion and complete disregard for W.T.O. rules,”
Mr. Haddad wrote on Monday. “We must quickly draw the necessary conclusions or
risk being wiped out.”
Mr. Trump
and Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, focused on
the scale of the trade deal on Sunday when they met at Mr. Trump’s golf course
in Scotland. The two sides have the biggest economic relationship in the world,
trading nearly $2 trillion in goods and services annually.
Despite
France’s push on other European countries to take a harder line, a majority of
them had wanted a deal quickly. Ms. Von der Leyen “simply took into account the
wishes of the majority of member states who do not want a confrontation with
the United States,” Gérard Araud, France’s former ambassador to the United
States, wrote on Monday.
A 15
percent tariff on E.U. goods is a notable increase, when just a few weeks ago
Europe was working on negotiating a 10 percent across-the-board rate. Many
European companies will be worse off under the recent deal than before Mr.
Trump’s trade war, when U.S. import tariffs were in the low single digits.
While the
deal gives notable relief to Europe’s hulking car industry — in particular
German automakers like Volkswagen and Mercedes-Benz, which had been facing
separate 25 percent tariffs — it also puts other European industries in a bind.
Our
economics reporters — based in New York, London, Brussels, Berlin, Hong Kong
and Seoul — are digging into every aspect of the tariffs causing global
turmoil. They are joined by dozens of reporters writing about the effects on
everyday people.
Here’s
our latest reporting on tariffs and economic policy.
France,
in particular, did not get what it had been pushing for in several areas. Major
industries got exemptions from the tariffs, including airplanes, which will
benefit the European aerospace giant Airbus, based in Toulouse, France, along
with its American rival, Boeing.
But many
companies that are symbolic of “Made in France” may find their products
becoming more expensive for U.S. buyers. French cognac, wine and Champagne, for
example, make up nearly half of all Europe’s drinks exports to America.
Negotiations on potentially exempting the wine and spirits industries were
continuing, Ms. von der Leyen said.
The
Federation of French Wine and Spirits Exporters said a failure to secure an
exemption would create an “extremely violent shock” on both sides of the
Atlantic. According to the Wine & Spirits Wholesalers of America, a 15
percent tariff on European wines could threaten 17,000 jobs and cost U.S.
businesses $2.5 billion.
Also at
risk are French cosmetics products, which previously had zero customs duties to
enter the United States. They will now be taxed at 15 percent, said Emmanuel
Guichard, secretary general of the Federation of Beauty Companies, which
includes L’Oreal and LVMH, which owns Sephora as well as high-end beauty brands
including Christian Dior perfumes. That shift poses “a significant threat” that
could put up to 5,000 jobs at risk, he said.
And as
Mr. Trump headed out to his golf resort in Scotland on Monday with the British
prime minister, Keir Starmer, the uneven nature of America’s trade deals with
the Europe Union and Britain was in stark relief.
Mr. Trump
and Mr. Starmer hammered out an earlier deal for an across-the-board tariff of
10 percent on British goods in America, including British-made cars. European
companies were eager not to be taxed at the 30 percent rate that Mr. Trump had
threatened, but they are still worried that a 15 percent duty would make their
exports more expensive in America than British goods.
“This
agreement should not be the end of the story,” France’s minister for foreign
trade, Laurent Saint-Martin, said Monday. If it is, “we would simply have
weakened ourselves.”
Liz
Alderman is the chief European business correspondent, writing about economic,
social and policy developments around Europe.
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