President Trump‘s statement last Friday, mentioning the superiority of Californian wines over French ones, will certainly be a milestone. So far, the Americans have been content to defend their agri-food products, of which wine is a part, in the face of the repeated beating of the Agricultural EU (synonymous with Agricultural France). Before, the goal was for the US to say, in short, that their products, prepared in accordance with the principles of sanitary safety the most stringent, as recognized by the WTO, were just as good as the products of Agricultural France. But it seems that this way of communicating has been highly snubbed by the European leaders concerned. In that case, according to the adage “the best defense is the attack”, the American President, this time, increased pressure on French agri-food in making fun of French wine, the most emblematic of French products for export. The French are furious. They sell tens of millions of bottles of wine and spirits annually on the American market and as many, if not more, elsewhere in the world. For their part, the British, who enjoy wine but do not grow grapes on their island, may have received President Trump‘s comment as a wink that they will not miss wine after Brexit. But, for those who saw the French cult movie of the mid-seventies The Wing or the Thigh, the declaration of the American President must make “turn in his grave” the legendary actor, the late Louis de Funès.
Still on the chapter “Who does better than the other”, the Germans, supported by the large number of Americans living in the Federal Republic of Germany at that time, have consolidated, for decades, the myth of “Made in Germany “and exporting their machine tools worldwide, cars in the first place. The US must probably consider that it has contributed to the worldwide spread of the credibility of the “Made in Germany” of the post-war period but that it has been badly paid back (see below). Just as yesterday (Thursday), the US ambassador to Berlin, Richard Grenell, did not take gloves to remind the Germans of that fact. France, for its part, with the help of the Anglo-Saxon countries who come, since long ago, as tourist to have a good time, has built an equivalent myth around its local products whose wine occupies a privileged place. Having done that, the French took care to build, with cunning and address, all kinds of merits that they attribute themselves to their agri-food products, the wine in first place, that they spread everywhere on the planet and that the film evoked above summarizes in a subtle way. Many French organoleptic standards and expertise of all kinds, more or less esoteric, are advanced to support these marketing efforts. This, of course, does not detract from France’s contribution to universal gastronomy (see: http://alkhabir.org/en/useful-french-legacy-to-morocco/). However, we must remember that Italy (Rome) preceded France in the art of winemaking and remains to this day the leading producer and the largest exporter of wine and has very great wines appreciated throughout the world.
Germany’s approach to promoting “Made in Germany” for their industrial products has been comparable to that of the French for their wine.
But these efforts began during the period that the French call the thirty glorious (fifties, sixties and seventies) of the last century, which also constituted years of strong tension of the US with the Soviets. At that time, Europe in general, France and Germany in particular, benefited in many ways from America’s interest in being helped in its struggle against communist countries during the Cold War. French art, gastronomy, culture, theater, music and films, among others, were proliferating worldwide and made headlines alongside international events such as the books of the soviet opponent Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and others. That time has been gone forever now and the world has changed a lot since then. At the risk of a “military war” apprehended during the cold war a real “trade war” followed and, in this new struggle, the EU appears to be an adversary of the US that may be even tougher than China. In this respect, all observations show today that Americans have become aware of the challenge that the EU poses to their business internationally. As a result, everything suggests that America is working diligently to demystify one after another the more or less sophisticated, but wobbly, pillars on which continental Europe has chosen to project anew its renewed power in the world, primarily on our African continent. For example, the Euro at its launch was, according to its designers, to supplant the Dollar (see under: la guerre des matières premières) as the first international currency. The containment (allegedly) of Uncle Sam of this ambition, supposedly conceived by Late Helmut Kohl and François Mitterrand, caused that, twenty years after its introduction, the exchanges made in Euro represent less than 10 percent and are concentrated first in Africa / EU trade. In this spirit, the US / EU frictions of the last thirty years have almost pushed Germany, as the leading figure of the power of commercial Europe, into the arms of China in sign of probable distrust to America. Germany has even begun, a few years ago, a rapprochement in fanfare with the Middle Kingdom. It is possible that these gestures have irritated to the highest point the American part and be related with the subsequent discovery, on American soil, of the Volkswagen illegal activities dealing with the “Dieselgate“. The scandal of the fraudulent engines in question was then extended to vehicles of other German brands. As a result, the scrupulousness of the “Made in Germany” is now severely damaged and begins to negatively affect the Myth of the efficiency of the “Made in Germany” that was universally accepted until today. Also, it is possible that the recession on which Germany stands right now is just the harbinger of many other setbacks that Uncle Sam would be simmering for the future. On this chapter, President Trump has said he is ready to decide on the application of additional taxes on cars and spare parts imported from Germany before the end of this year already.
Seeing the traditional markets, first of all that of the US, are slipping out of their hands one after the other, the EU then embarked on a frantic race for the signing of free trade agreements everywhere. But, considering this entire transatlantic ruckus, it is now circulating in circles of the Agricultural EU, stories on the mode of conspiracy theory. For example, the free trade agreement signed with Canada, the CETA (Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement), would be just a Trojan horse developed by the Americans to flood the EU market with their agri-food products. And the free trade agreement signed with Mercosur (Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay) would be even worse because there will be added non-compliant products risking the health of the European consumer. On the same tone, while the EU says it is ready to work seriously (sic!) with ACFTA (African Continental Free Trade Area) in the future, we do not know for the moment whether our future agri-food products would be acceptable to the European consumer.
In reality, the agricultural trade balance of Agricultural France is currently in surplus with Africa only. Multiplying free trade agreements will not produce miracles in this regard. So, it may be high time for the EU Bloc to realize that apart from any other considerations, the CAP (Common Agricultural Policy) has developed in the Agricultural EU a sickly addiction to easy money and, at the same time, a decline in profitability and a harmful neglect of the principles of competition that underlie international work. Yet it is an illustrious French character and great poet, Monsieur Jean de la Fontaine, who, in his poem «the plowman and his children“, instructed his fellow citizens “That work is a treasure“. Perhaps it would be useful for Agricultural France to come back to this great sage.
