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President Trump’s 200% tariff threat on French wine follows Paris’s refusal to join the proposed Board of Peace, exposing Europe’s preference for moral rhetoric without responsibility. The move is leverage designed to force engagement on trade imbalances and security burden-sharing. By linking market access to diplomatic participation, Trump is replacing empty multilateralism with power-based negotiation and clear costs.
Trump’s tariff threats amount to economic coercion that steadily erodes transatlantic trust and flouts established international norms. Weaponizing trade to extract political compliance weakens long-standing alliances and injects volatility into global markets. France’s resistance reflects a wider European imperative to defend strategic sovereignty, making the EU’s anti-coercion instrument a justified and necessary response to an increasingly unpredictable partner.