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The former Chief Jean-Claude Juncker of the European Commission has criticized his successor, Ursula von der Leyen, because he is not personally involved to quickly prevent Donald Trump’s trade war.
“I think the committee would be better advised to try to hold a meeting as early as possible, because it was foreseeable that he would come back to the [trade] Problem, “Juncker told the Financial Times.
“There will be no deal without the active presence of the committee president,” he added, speaking in his Brussels office five floors under Von der Leyen, which he received after he was appointed special adviser to the committee.
This year, the US President has again imposed the rates on EU steel and aluminum that he had introduced in his first term and that Juncker could be suspended in 2018 by promising that the block would buy more American gas and soy. Trump has also threatened to impose a 50 percent levy on all EU imports if the current trade interviews with Brussels fail by July 9.
Juncker said he saw Trump at least seven times before he closed the deal in 2018.
Von der Leyen, on the other hand, did not have a dedicated bilateral meeting to discuss the trade conflict, instead only briefly with Trump on the sidelines of international events such as the funeral of Pope Francis in April. She will participate in a G7 top in Canada on Monday, who also attends Trump, but officials in Brussels were not sure if they would discuss trade on the sidelines.
Juncker acknowledged that it was “more difficult” for Von der Leyen, because the hostility of Trump against Europe is more pronounced and he makes fewer travel abroad compared to his first term. But delegating the conversations with trade commissioner Maroš Šefčovič was a mistake, Juncker said.
Trump “seems to be more or less the same,” said the former Luxembourg Prime Minister. But the American president now said in public what he previously claimed behind closed doors, such as the accusation that the EU was set up to “fuck” the US.
Juncker said that commission officials had been in their strategy, by promising retribution rates at € 26 billion in American goods, including alcohol – to which the member states quickly rebelled for fear that the US was good at his threat of placing 200 percent levies on European wine and spirits. In the end, the committee dropped us whiskey and other items from the list, which were only € 21 billion in American exports and whose implementation was also suspended pending negotiations.
“I don’t know if this is a sign of weakness, but it is a sign of poor preparation because these specific sanctions could have been replaced by others who had the same goal,” Juncker said.
Juncker, on the other hand, remembered that he “had a list of states that were governed by Republican governors and so I wanted to touch him where his colleagues in the US would not be happy. Bring him into difficulties. And that succeeded.”
EU officials say they are working on a list of € 95 billion in American goods in the event that conversations fail, although they admit that it will probably also be reduced by national lobbying.
Brussels has tried to copy the successful range of Juncker to reduce the trade deficit by buying more American goods, but this time that did not make much impression on the Trump administration.
Although committee officials cannot buy goods directly, Juncker said: “People here and elsewhere had contact with the market players and told them they had to make that effort, and they did that”.
Soy Bean Import “increased by 418 percent during the six months after the agreement,” he said.
Asked how to deal with Trump, he said that you ‘should respect him’ and ‘talk to him in a polite way, not the way he talks to you’.
However, leaders must stand up for their interests. “He respects you if you are not on your knees. I have the impression that there are European governments that want to please him.”
Juncker remembered that Trump had called him a “brutal murderer” and a “tough guy”. “You have to respect it because you need his respect.”
The American president called Von der Leyen ‘fantastic’ after she had met her briefly in Rome at the papal funeral. But since then his conversations have stopped and Trump has threatened to impose 50 percent rates instead of 20 percent, accusing Brussels of “slow walking” in the negotiations.
