A primary impetus of a nation is to be autonomous, to resist the impositions of other nations on it, so consider what President Donald Trump has done to France in particular and the European Union in general by his arbitrary decision to renounce the Iran Nuclear Deal and impose economic sanctions that the alliance never thought would be implemented arbitrarily by the United States. France with a belief in the peace engendering effect of trade and having sensed an economic opportunity worked energetically to provide Iran the promised economic surge to bring the country back into the community of nations. Now it finds French industry forced to give up investments and opportunity in Iran despite President Emmanuel Macron’s most congenial efforts to persuade our President not too. France is a proud country and as its former President Charles de Gaulle has proven a fiercely independent one as well. It’s not logical to believe that this insult will be swept under the rug.
Total, a French oil company equivalent to our ExxonMobil in national prestige, is now forced to give up its investment in Iran. Peugeot, an auto company equivalent to our Ford in national prestige is now forced to give up its investment in Iran. Airbus, a European aircraft manufacturer equivalent to our Boeing and based in France, is now forced to take back aircraft with American technology that it has leased or sold to Iran. Would our companies tolerate such an imposition from another? Trump in his Elkhart Indiana stump speech bragged that he was for the U.S.A. first just as Macron is for France. It is time for France to to put their business first.
The blunt economic trauma forced on our allies by the Trump Administration demanding adherence to the Iran sanctions will breakdown our alliance. It will be felt first by American Aerospace Companies, Honeywell Corp. for example, as Europe develops workarounds to technology stopping European aircraft from freely being sold wherever Europe deems legal and appropriate. Since China is a Iran Deal signatory it will see Europe’s pain and its reaction to it thereby inculcating in them the need for self sufficiency and develop competing technology.
On top of Trump’s Aluminum and Steel tariffs renouncing the Iran Deal might be the last straw that breaks the alliance’s back so that it’s no wonder that one European minister’s reaction was to tweet that Trump can count on only one helping hand in fulfilling the sanctions against Iran, the one attached to the end of his arm. Once again a sane and rational China may be the preferred ally on trade matters as well.
Finally it’s Mr. Trump’s bad manners that will drive away the European Alliance. He had a pugnacious upbringing which he further developed into an all consuming me against the world persona in later life. It’s a particularly poor background for diplomacy he treats our allies and the linkages that bind us together as he does our foes. He is a brute, a brute who considers it sport to squash a nice guy like the President of France Emmanuel Macron down to the point of pleading irrelevance. Under the circumstances it is logical for politicians in Europe to think of United States as an adversary because for their political life they can’t just take these insults lying down. Renouncing the Iran deal is the tipping point which breaks our European alliance leaving long lasting blows to our relations
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