French Labor Minister Muriel Penicaud on Tuesday accused the Trump administration of pursuing protectionist policies that could be sign of possible conflicts on the horizon.

“I understand the point short-term but for the long term … We don’t think that protectionism is a policy,” Penicaud told the Washington Examiner. “Protectionism goes very quickly with nationalism, and that can go with conflict too.”

She spoke just as the Trump administration and European Union leaders are making preparations to begin talks later this year for a new trade deal.

The White House is currently mulling 25 percent tariffs on autos and auto parts, a policy that would hit the EU hard. A Commerce Department report sent to the White House last month is widely assumed to give the administration a rationale to impose tariffs under a section of U.S. trade law that allows duties to be imposed for national security reasons.

President Trump must make a decision by May on whether to impose the tariffs.

The White House is also demanding that the EU put its agricultural subsidies be up for negotiation, but the Europeans are refusing to do that.

“Any [free trade agreement] has to deal with agricultural products … But we are at a complete stalemate on that,” U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer told the Senate Finance Committee Tuesday.

Trump has said his decision will depend on how the talks with the EU’s leaders go. “The bottom line result is whether we can make a deal with the EU that is fair," he said last month.

Penicaud compared the administration’s policies with the United Kingdom’s current work to exit the European common market, the so-called “Brexit.”

“Nobody is happy with Brexit. It is a lose-lose proposition,” she said. “We cannot promote trade if we only defend (domestic industries). If you only defend, you are not leading.”

The labor minister was in Washington to meet with her U.S. counterpart, Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta. She said the EU could learn from the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement on trade that was negotiated last year, pointing to a provision in the deal that requires Mexico to raise its factory wages.

French President Emmanuel Macron has promoted the idea of a EU-wide minimum wage that could vary by region. Penicaud said the USMCA illustrates how international deals could be done to promote that.

March 12, 2019
Source: The Wasshington Examiner