Un nouveau président américain, quels sont les changements dans la stratégie d'influence des USA sur l'UE et quel est l'impact pour les exportateurs wallons ?

Abstract

Billionaire Donald Trump won the presidential elections in late 2016 and took office in early 2017. The President had promised during his campaign that he would follow a much more radical and effective policy of influence than his predecessors. A year and a half after his investiture, it was interesting to see if the reality matched the promises and if we could see changes in the strategy of influence of the United States vis-à-vis Europe. It was also important to know whether this possible differentiated approach had an impact on Walloon exports. This influence study focused on hard, soft and smart power. This work has demonstrated, by the theory and the example of situations, as well as by interviews of industrial exporters and experts in export and strategy, that the United States have an enormous power of coercive influence on the world thanks to their territorial and economic, especially thanks to the abundance of raw materials, military and technological power but also benefit from a great capacity of influence by seduction thanks to their ability to disperse their culture and their political ideas. The study also showed that Barrack Obama, Donald Trump's predecessor, has not been behindhand in the use of coercive influence, despite his concern to develop a smooth approach, developing partnerships, negotiating a free trade agreement with Europe and composing with NATO, among others. Donald Trump, for his part, has more developed the coercive aspect by denouncing various treaties, promoting military spending and introducing import taxes on steel and aluminium, while systematically opening up these measures to negotiation. As these actions have been taken gradually, it is still too early to determine the real impact on Europe and on Walloon exports. The European Union, being the largest exporter of steel to the United States, nevertheless runs a certain risk of seeing its sales decline. Wallonia, meanwhile, is directly virtually unaffected because its sales of steel in the United States are very weak. In the opinion of the experts, the measures of influence currently being taken against Europe and Wallonia are only the prelude to further negotiations aimed at first favouring the United States with a view to “making America great again”.