Military battles are won thanks to appropriate alliances. It is the same in economy where the usual term is rather competition but the result is the same: there are winners and losers. The United States president seems to ignore that obviousness. On one side he shows off, to the opposite to his predecessors, an unlimited desire for power and, in the same time, he isolates his country. Every meetings he participates or appointments he gives, and there would have been a lot in July, reveals deep clashes. NATO Summit saw the United States bringing an accusation against European countries. The meeting with Vladimir Putin reached no result except the launch of a political storm in the U.S. the White House reversals didn’t calm down. People are questioning about what will happen after the face-to-face meeting with Jean Claude Juncker who is visiting Washington this week to defuse the trade dispute which is getting harder with Europe.

During that time, major emerging countries are gathering in Johannesburg where the Chinese president will achieve his Africa tour. He will join up, along with local leaders, his Russian, Indian and Brazilian counterparts. Nobody doubts that the strengthening of their cooperation will be on the agenda. A few days after, in Singapore, ASEAN countries will conclude, as a supreme slap in the face of the U.S., an economic partnership with Iran. Whatever the American president wants it or not, international meetings devoted to the search of agreements benefiting to these who will sign them, will go on. The fight against climate change will become more intense, the liberalization of the exchanges of goods and services will remain a priority as, to cope with risks, the coordination in the definition of international rules and in economic and monetary policies.

The denunciation of the nuclear agreement with Iran and the hardening of the sanctions against this country did provoke an immediate consequence: the rise of oil prices. If it delights major American oil companies along with the new producers of shale oil and gas, it aroused the displeasure of people. The last brainwave of the White House would be to directly attack OPEC and so, to fall out with one of the last supporters of the U.S. in that area, Saudi Arabia. It is not even anymore possible to rule out that policy leads to a reconciliation of the kingdom with its sworn enemy, Iran.

 With Europe, it is even worse. Donald Trump has put on in many circumstances a deep hostility against his Allies. There is first the case, at least not completely unfounded, regarding NATO funding. You can be right on certain points and fail to convince because of your behavior. It is what has just happened. The attitude about the United Kingdom is also quite incomprehensible. Instead of supporting the achievement of a good agreement about Brexit, the American president is adding fuel to the fire and makes the British Prime minister weaker when she is already in a major trouble especially because of the tricky Irish border issue. Regarding Germany, the scenario is not quite different. The Chancellor also is weakened. The threats regarding car exports are a real declaration of a trade war. If there are so many Mercedes and BMW on Fifth Avenue, it is because the American car industry has not been able to produce the vehicles corresponding to consumer desires. To tax them will only lead to price increases but definitely will not dissuade future buyers. Regarding the accusation of a submission to Russia after the building of the Nordstream 2 pipeline, it is as ridiculous as out of place. It is necessary to cope with the extinction of the production in the North Sea and the fact that natural gas comes or doesn’t come through Ukraine doesn’t change anything about its origin.

The consequences will be the same toward China. The deficit between the two countries is the result of the delocalization strategy of American industry or of the supply practices of big retailers. Customs duties will be transferred and will weight on households through price increases. That will reinforce the Federal Reserve in its will to raise its interest rates. The inconsistency of the president action will appear even more clearly: he nourishes inflation on one side and he criticizes on the same time the central bank action whose mandate is precisely to fight again inflation. American producers will be also hurt. The soya bean case is revealing. China is the most important importer in the world. Until now the country got its supplies mainly from the U.S. Customs duties instituted by Beijing as a retort to Donald Trump decisions already incite to turn toward the other major producer, Brazil whose exports are on a strong rise. Beyond the strictly trade issue, it is the rapprochement between these two countries, China and Brazil, which until now had few economic relations, which is the essential point and which will contribute to even more isolate the United States.

Last find of the American administration, to start a monetary war. The level of the euro is criticized and its recent retreat is attributed to the desire to protect European exports toward the U.S. But this weakening is only the result of the new anticipations of financial markets regarding central banks policies. They forecast a rise of American rates caused by tensions on prices and they consider that the economic slowing resulting of the start of the “trade war” will incite the ECB to keep during a longer period an accommodative policy. The perspectives of a rebound of interest rates are postponed until a date which is not undetermined but farer than it was expected until now. It is not, obviously, without consequences on the parity between the euro and the dollar.

Toward China, the accusation of a manipulation is becoming more and more insistent. But it is all but convincing. As in Europe, monetary authorities consider that the American policy put a threat on the evolution of the international trade which will affect Chinese companies. First half results have over passed the objectives fixed by the government with a growth rate above 6.5%. But to avoid a slowing in the second half, the monetary policy has been softened with a little reduction of the reserve ratio banks must comply with and through an injection of liquidities by the central bank for an amount of 74 billion dollar. The Yuan 2% fluctuation margin has been confirmed and the intervention level of the China central bank has only been reduced by 0.9%. In the same time the Chinese government has confirmed it will not follow a devaluation policy for its currency to cope with the American decisions.

Until now, financial markets have not reacted with excesses to Donald Trump monetary message. But the lessons of the great 2007-2008 crisis and of the euro zone one in 2010 have not been forgotten. It was through consultations and the common research of solutions that it was possible to put an end to them and to generate an economic rebound, even if it did not occur with the same strength everywhere. The new threat that the American president is putting on the world economy is that if another major crisis was coming, his constant attitude since its election would make almost impossible to find solutions which could permit to overcome it.