Talking Europe speaks to one of France’s most distinguished diplomats. Philippe Etienne, once dubbed “Macron’s diplomatic brain,” has been the French ambassador to Washington and Berlin as well as the permanent representative to the European Union. We ponder Donald Trump’s possible return to the White House – something that Etienne says could pose problems for Europe on trade, given Trump’s penchant for tariffs. We also discuss Hungary’s presidency of the EU; the EU’s defence and security agenda over the next few months; and the hopes for a smoother EU-UK relationship following the British general election.
Under a Trump administration, “multilateralism would be neglected in favour of transactionalism,” Etienne says. “And we can also be worried about trade because Donald Trump has announced that he would very much rely on tariffs for China in particular, but also towards anybody. So if he becomes president again and does what he has announced, then we would have big, big difficulties in trade. And we saw when he was president that he did not make a difference between allies of the United States and other countries,” Etienne affirms.
