Feared enough

Macron: EU wasn’t ‘feared enough’ by Trump to get good trade deal 

The French president also insisted there’s still time to negotiate.

By Clea Caulcutt, Sarah Paillou and Giorgio Leali

French President Emmanuel Macron said the European Union failed to leverage its massive single market and sufficiently scare the United States into accepting a better deal than the one it reached Sunday.

“We need to be feared. We weren’t feared enough,” Macron told ministers at the weekly Cabinet meeting Wednesday, said a French official close to Macron, who, like others in this piece, was granted anonymity as it is often customary practice.

Macron was noticeably silent in the days after U.S. President Donald Trump and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen struck the accord, which will see the EU pay 15 percent tariffs on most of its exports to the United States. 

The French leader did not strike as dire a tone as his prime minister, who said the pact marked a “dark day” for Europe, and even credited the deal for bringing some short-term clarity to the situation.  

Macron also lauded European negotiators for protecting French and European interests during “negotiations conducted in difficult conditions” given Trump’s desire to implement some form of tariffs on U.S. trading partners — and with them, fundamentally transform the global economy. 

But Macron said he believes there’s still time to do better.

“The story isn’t over and we won’t stop there,” he said.

The deal has proved a lightning rod across the continent, especially considering the 10 percent tariffs post-Brexit Britain secured on most of its own exports across the Atlantic.  

Though leaders like German Chancellor Friedrich Merz  — who was pushing for a quick agreement to protect the country’s export-oriented economy — and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni have welcomed the accord, France has led the chorus of its political opponents. 

Trade Minister Laurent Saint-Martin and Europe Minister Benjamin Haddad on Monday urged the Commission to threaten to use the bloc’s Anti-Coercion Instrument, a tool designed to respond to economic pressure by giving Brussels the authority to restrict access for companies to public procurement, foreign direct investment and financial markets in the EU. 

Even though France had publicly endorsed the Commission’s negotiating tactics, French officials last week questioned the Commission’s approach and called for von der Leyen’s team to get more aggressive. At the same time, France continued to lobby behind the scenes to shield its wine and spirits sector from the trade war.

Brussels has, in turn, accused its critics of effectively playing Monday morning quarterback, arguing that this deal was the best they could get and constituted a significant improvement over the 30 percent tariffs that the Trump administration had threatened.