What if Trump was (sometimes) right?

The NATO summit was an opportunity for the American president to attack Europe and relaunch the trade war.
  

Unreasonable, insane, provocative, uncontrollable, aggressive … Everything was said about the behavior of the American President during his new European visit to the NATO summit. Still, behind his attacks in the big artillery, Donald Trump asks (sometimes!) Good questions … while bringing (often!) Wrong answers. Example with four hot folders.

NATO, and if the Europeans did not put enough money in the fund to defend themselves?

The numbers are relentless. At the European NATO Summit in Wales in 2014, European countries committed themselves to spending at least 2% of their annual gross domestic product by the year 2024. At present , the account is not there. Outside the United States, at 3.50% of GDP, only four European countries keep this promise: Greece, Estonia, the United Kingdom and Latvia. With the military programming law adopted on June 28th, France, whose expenditure amounts to 1.81% of GDP, could meet this objective in … 2 025. Provided that the future tenant of the Elysee in 2022 do not go back on that commitment. Favorite target of the American billionaire: Germany, far from the account with its meager 1.24%.

His obsession in this matter is not new: in 1987, the real estate mogul offered himself a full page of the New York Times to denounce the military protection that the United States brought, without compensation, according to him, to his allies. However, is Donald Trump right to consider a "refund" in the United States? No, because the target of 2% has nothing to do with the direct contribution to the NATO budget – it amounts to just over 1.5 billion euros. It corresponds to the national budgets of each state. In the face of the US President's coup, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg was forced to convene an emergency meeting to defuse the crisis. Bringing the hot and cold, the US president welcomed at the end of the summit to have "achieved extraordinary progress". A little self-satisfaction, never hurts …

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China, and if it did not respect the rules of the world game?

And bing! On the sidelines of the NATO summit, Donald Trump put a coin in the machine of the trade war with China by threatening to hit a 10% surtax on a list of nearly $ 200 billion worth of imported Chinese products. The American president gives himself two months before taking action. "Whether it is about respect for intellectual property, technology transfers to foreign investors or access to public markets, Trump's criticism is justified," says Patrick Artus, chief economist at Natixis.

Problem, his strategy to bend China is questionable. "By adopting a very protectionist method, Trump loses its natural allies that are the Europeans.It would have had any interest to ally with Brussels to bend Beijing.It makes a big mistake," says the economist. Meanwhile, this new stage of the trade war is starting to seriously worry. Euler Hermes experts have calculated that if the announced measures become effective, it would result in a 0.5 point reduction in growth in the United States and Europe.

Germany, and if the energy security of the country was threatened?

"Germany is a prisoner of Russia because it pulls (from the country) a big part of its energy" launched the American president since the first day of the NATO summit. Behind this attack, it's the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project that haunts the American president. A project worth almost 9 billion euros that connects Russia to Germany under the Baltic Sea and that simply aims to increase by one third the Russian gas deliveries to Europe. For Germany, which derives a good deal of its electricity from gas power plants after the closure of its nuclear fleet and its commitment to get out of coal, this new gas pipeline, led by the giant Gazprom, is crucial.

The American Administration sees – officially – a risk to the energy security of the Continent in case of closure of the Russian tap. Behind this argument, Washington especially sees the European market closing. With the shale gas revolution, the United States aims to flood the planet with liquefied natural gas (LNG) and especially the Old Continent. Huge liquefaction plants have even been built on the east coast of the United States. US mercantile interests are never far away …

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WTO, and if this institution no longer served for nothing?

Down with the free trade that caused the loss of millions of jobs in the Rust Bell, the industrial states of the Northeast of the United States: a message that the American President has been hammering for months . And to dismantle multilateralism, Donald Trump has a plan: to blow up the WTO, the World Trade Organization, an international institution that sets the rules of trade and strives to enforce them. "Trump is right when he says that the commercial dispute resolution body is no longer working." The proceedings last for years and are extremely legal, "says Lionel Fontagné, a professor at the Paris School of Economics.

"The rules of the WTO do not allow to sanction China against the practices of disguised subsidies which it grants to certain big industrial groups", adds Sebastien Jean the director of the CEPII (Center for prospective studies and international information). Even Emmanuel Macron proposed at the end of May a reform of the WTO. Risk today? Trump dynamite the system completely. It is not very far. The United States has been blocking the appointment of four new judges for months. In September, there will be only three left. According to its statutes, the WTO will be paralyzed …