Even Our Allies Threaten Trade War If Trump Follows Through On Election Promises

Nicolas Sarkozy, a man whose political future seemed to have no way forward after losing to Francois Hollande in the French elections of 2012, has re-emerged and will be a contender in next year’s French elections. Sarkozy, Alain Juppe, and Francois Fillon are all battling to gain the nomination of Les Republicians party and its center right allies. The winner will lead a pretty broad coalition against the far-right, anti-EU, anti-immigrant, nationalist Marine Le Pen and her National Front party.

In what might be an indication of what’s in store internationally for a Trump administration, yesterday Sarkozy gave a glimpse into the possibility of a spiraling global trade war if Trump follows through on many of his campaign pledges. When asked what France and Europe should do if Trump pulled out of the Paris climate change agreements, Sarkozy responded, “Well, I will demand that Europe put in place a carbon tax at its border, a tax of 1-3 per cent, for all products coming from the United States, if the United States doesn’t apply environmental rules that we are imposing on our companies.” Sarkozy is a pretty crafty politician and I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t stake out a position like this unless there was some real support for it. Whether the EU will actually go along with this is another question.

In the campaign, Trump used the example of the Carrier plant in Indiana to illustrate how he would protect American jobs from being outsourced to other countries, in this case Mexico. Trump promised to institute an 35% tariff on air conditioners and furnaces imported from Mexico which would force Carrier to keep those jobs in the United States. And many of those Carrier workers voted for Trump because of that. And they expect him to keep his word. As one worker declared, “If he doesn’t pass that tariff, I will vote the other way next time.”

Now that Trump has actually won the election, the impossible promises he made will somehow have to be dealt with. If he does forge ahead and keep his promises such as imposing tariffs on Mexican goods and withdrawing from the climate change agreement, he will find that the rest of the world can and will respond in kind, as Sarkozy has just made clear. I’m pretty sure that the business elites in the US will not be too happy if that were to happen. Whether they can actually control Trump and his anti-establishment cohorts remain to be seen. But I’m guessing that the Carrier worker will be voting the other way next time.