The Trump presidency does not mark a break with previous administrations:
Since at least December 1941, when the United States unquestionably became the dominant superpower, the relationship between the United States and Europe has always been based on a balance of power and blackmail: there has been no questioning by Trump of support for Europe, because the United States has always done everything in its power to undermine European construction, fearing its competition. Nor has there been any questioning of its relationship with Russia, with whom it has always been eager to come to terms at our expense. There has been no questioning of their support in defending our interests, because they have never done so. There has been no new media invasion, because that has always been the case. Finally, there has been no questioning by Trump of a special relationship with France, because Americans have always treated the French as petty thugs who mistakenly thought they were gang leaders.
- On government through blackmail: in February 1943, when negotiations on the statutes of the IMF and the World Bank were going badly, from the American point of view, American ships bringing arms to Europe were slowing down in the Atlantic; in May 1983, at the G7 summit in Williamsburg, during a very violent meeting between the heads of state and their sherpas, President Reagan’s security advisor secretly told me that if the French President did not immediately give in to the American order to include French nuclear weapons in the count of Western armaments against the Soviets (which would have enabled the Americans to sell off the French arsenal in a global disarmament agreement) , the American President would halt deliveries to France of the American technical components on which the operation of its nuclear arsenal still depended (see the detailed description of this negotiation, so close to the present one, in Verbatim, Volume 1).
- As far as the construction of Europe is concerned, the United States has always done everything in its power to prevent it from becoming a real power, using its allies in the Union to impose suicidal competition between Europeans, making it impossible to implement a Common External Tariff and build European giants in telecoms, chemicals, banking and so many other sectors. They also did their utmost to prevent the establishment of a political Europe, going so far as to force unwilling Eastern European countries (“never go back to the equivalent of a Comecon!” Czech and Polish leaders told me at the time) to join the European Union after the fall of the Berlin Wall, so that the excessive number of members would prevent any integrated political construction. And the same could be said of the insane American pressure, since 1945, to buy their weapons and films, to impose the extraterritoriality of their law, to make it impossible to build European competitors to their digital giants, to prevent any alliance with a third party that didn’t suit them. And Europeans have only been able to create institutions without them, such as the European Central Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, because the Americans didn’t believe we could, or because they managed to take control of them.
- When it comes to defending common interests, under the Reagan presidency, as under the Obama presidency, the Americans have always sought and obtained the support of their allies, whereas they have always abandoned them in open country, even when it came to launching a joint retaliation operation after tragic attacks on each other’s soldiers.
- On the special relationship with France, American leaders have always devalued, marginalized and treated their French counterparts with disregard, sending the same circular letter to the French president, whoever he may be, on strategic military issues as they do to the prime ministers of Luxembourg or Denmark. And refusing, as we saw in the case of Williamsburg, to accept the strategic independence of the French nuclear force.
All in all, the United States, for all its rhetoric, has been a cynical superpower since it entered the war in 1941, thinking only of its own interests and never thinking in terms of alliances. And only those who have been clear, and who have not backed down, have prevailed against them. So, in May 1983, in that Williamsburg summit room, as I watched Ronald Reagan pound the table while Francois Mitterrand spoke, then throw his files in his face, and as his security advisor told me that our nuclear weapons would be disarmed if we didn’t give in, the French President, totally isolated in that room, didn’t blink. He never hinted that he could accept the unacceptable. And the Americans backed down.
Today, nothing has changed, apart from the fact that the American administration is also a rogue administration that thinks above all of enriching itself personally. And that it’s not the French who are now alone, but the Americans: the Germans, the British and the Canadians, who used to lie down before American whims, are now standing up, and sometimes even speaking out more clearly than the French.
Europeans must recognize that the Americans have not been there to defend them for a very long time; they must be ready to use all the means at their disposal, even beyond the trade weapon now being brandished. They must threaten not to continue buying American treasury bonds; to stop selling them certain very special parts that American industry cannot do without; to turn to China, Brazil, Argentina, Morocco or India to find competing suppliers; to equip themselves with armaments that are as autonomous as possible; and to emerge as quickly as possible (and it is possible) from their dependence in terms of means of payment and digital networks.
Donald Trump has simply made visible to the general public what all those who have been associated with public affairs at the highest level have known for a very long time: international law does not exist, and the United States is not an ally but a overlord.
We’ll see who refuses to be treated like vassals.