Arancha González Laya (San Sebastián, 55 years outdated) could be very exhausting with the business insurance policies of the United States. Since its lengthy profession in business issues inside multilateral organizations such because the World Trade Organization (WTO), the UN and the European Commission, it wields an articulated and really essential discourse with this US administration of Donald Trump with a nuance that makes clear in phone dialog: it speaks of US business insurance policies, not of the people who find themselves in entrance. These insurance policies are what the previous Spanish Foreign Minister defines repeatedly as “predatory.” So far he says he had not seen something the identical in his profession, who’s now Dean of the School of International Affairs of Paris, depending on the celebrated Sciencepo.
Ask. What implies for worldwide commerce what the United States is doing?
Answer. If I needed to summarize it, I might say that it’s not honest commerce, they’re predatory insurance policies. We enter the period of predatory insurance policies, within the period of an American administration administrator within the geopolitical and financial. That is the place to begin if we need to perceive how a predator works that destroys programs, normative frameworks to impose their legislation and to extract the profit, forcing others to simply accept prices.
P. What he says is difficult.
R. But that is actuality. When a rustic questions one other’s fiscal coverage, VAT questions, digital taxes, environmental rules. When it breaks all pacts constructed for 80 years for the administration of economic insurance policies. And he does it just for his personal profit. That are predatory practices.
P. You have sufficient expertise in worldwide commerce, have you ever seen one thing comparable?
R. Never in life. Not even in its primary model. In the primary mandate [de Donald Trump] This was thought-about how this was raised as a approach of negotiating. But now it doesn’t think about that approach. You can’t negotiate issues which can be unnegociable. That is why I feel it seems extra like a predatory coverage. When they let you know that the phrases of the dialogue are Greenland, environmental insurance policies, equality insurance policies, tax insurance policies. There we’re not in a negotiation, we’re in an imposition, in an extraction of advantages for the United States, to the associated fee for others.
P. Don’t you assume we face first after which negotiate the way it was seen 4 years in the past?
R. It doesn’t appear to be a coup to barter, as a result of the phrases of that negotiation are unassumable for any nation. It just isn’t assumed for Denmark negotiating the sovereignty of Greenland. It just isn’t assumed for Spain that dictate its fiscal insurance policies. It just isn’t assumed for Canada to be instructed that will probably be state quantity 51. That doesn’t fall throughout the perimeter of a negotiation. When they put that on the desk, you have got already understood that this isn’t negotiable.
P. And how can we reply?
R. With unity and hardness. With unity as a result of our power is given to us by our market, a standard business coverage. Therefore, above all, we should not break the European unit. Breaking is bread for at this time and starvation for tomorrow. And the opposite vital ingredient is hardness, as a result of that’s the solely language that understands who seeks to impose predatory practices. Hardness means responding. Answer first as a result of I do not know if there’s house to barter later. I don’t imagine that the EU can negotiate its technological regulation, which is one thing that doesn’t go from financial system, it goes from democracy. I don’t assume he has to surrender his fiscal capability or to surrender his dedication to local weather change.
P. What can we negotiate then?
R. We can negotiate tariffs with out issues, however we can’t negotiate our digital regulation, constructed to guard our democracy. There is a 3rd ingredient to reply: alliances with different international locations. One of the US weaknesses is that it shoots in opposition to all its business companions. And if everybody responds exhausting, will probably be very tough for the US. Therefore, the EU should deal with their alliances with the nice enterprise companions and with the nice actors in worldwide commerce, Japan, Korea, China, Brazil, Mexico, Canada, India, Vietnam.
P. And how has Brussels executed to this point within the first solutions, akin to metal and aluminum tariffs?
R. We are being the accountable actor, defending our pursuits, not throwing firewood. Europe has not began this business struggle. This should be continually repeated. We can’t fall into this entice that have a tendency us that if we reply, we’re accused of being aggressive. No, we have now not began this struggle. We don’t need her. I feel to this point we’re doing properly. Let’s preserve this line, this might be crucial.
P. Should we resort to the anticoration instrument to hit the imports of US providers?
R. The US administration coverage is a case of an financial coercion ebook for which the European Union has an instrument.
P. There are authorized doubts if tariffs are normal for everybody.
R. The query just isn’t that everybody is imposed. It is why that tariff imposes. If you impose it as a result of you don’t like VAT or your regulation of the digital sector, it’s a case of an financial coercion ebook. In the World Trade Organization (WTO) there’s a entire panoply of devices in opposition to unfair commerce. But this isn’t about unfair commerce. Here all these practices are described that this US administration doesn’t like and never as a result of they’re opposite to worldwide legality. Anywhere in worldwide legality it’s stated that you simply would not have a tax autonomy so long as you do it in a non -discriminatory approach: Europe doesn’t apply an VAT to an imported product and a distinct VAT to a home product. Apply the identical. Here it’s a coercion so that you simply would not have taxes or rules that have an effect on US corporations. That is financial coercion.
P. Then it’s a must to hit the providers.
R. The European administration must consider the comfort of utilizing this instrument. It is sort of clear the place it has a weak point USA: in providers. The goal is to indicate hardness and affect these sectors that may have the capability to affect US administration.
P. The different day stated the president of Business Europe, Fredrik Person, that the EU’s business relationship with the US is irreplaceable within the quick and medium time period.
R. I don’t imagine on this method. I agree that the United States is irreplaceable for Europe. But additionally Europe is irreplaceable to the United States. It works in each instructions and that’s the reason monetary markets reply as they’re doing. It is the strongest business relationship on the earth. Our purpose is to not break it, is to reply exhausting to make it clear that this additionally has an incredible financial and monetary value for the United States. The goal just isn’t abruptly to hunt the decoupling of the American financial system.
https://elpais.com/economia/2025-04-03/gonzalez-laya-entramos-en-la-era-de-una-administracion-estadounidense-depredadora-en-lo-geopolitico-y-en-lo-economico.html