Word: mitterrand
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...foretaste of what may be in store at Williamsburg came last week from French President François Mitterrand. At a press conference following a meeting with West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, Mitterrand lashed out at American economic policy and complained that "it is not normal for the U.S. budget deficit to be paid by us in Europe." His meaning: U.S. shortfalls are the prime cause for continuing high international interest rates; these, in turn, could squelch the hesitant economic recovery in Western Europe. As a side effect, the level of interest rates has powerfully augmented the value...
...great extent the French and the other allies have reason to complain. The enormous U.S. deficits require extensive borrowing and keep money tight on both sides of the Atlantic; if they continue, they risk causing renewed world recession. The 3 West Europeans, including the Socialist Mitterrand government, also feel aggrieved because they are making rigorous efforts at fiscal austerity. As a percentage of national output, the projected U.S. deficit (6.3% of G.N.P.) is nearly twice as large as those of France, Britain and West Germany, and more than three times as great as Japan's. The rise in value...
...other hand, Mitterrand had domestic political motives for going public with his criticism. Before his government was forced into the current round of austerity measures, Mitterrand launched a program of Socialist pump priming, at a time when most other industrialized countries found it necessary to cut back. Result: domestic inflation is still 9%. With public support for the Socialists in France slipping badly, Mitterrand is using the U.S. as a convenient scapegoat...
...Mitterrand's outburst was an embarrassment to Chancellor Kohl, who prefers, as he put it at the same press conference, "to talk with friends and not at them." Nonetheless, concern over U.S. economic policies now appears to be endemic among all the allies. Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau has publicly cited the U.S. deficit as a contributor to "destructive" international interest rates, and so has British Chancellor of the Exchequer Geoffrey Howe...
...himself in a minority on East-West issues, at Williamsburg he should have comfort in numbers. Three of his fellow leaders - British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, Japanese Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone and West Germany's Kohl - share many of Reagan's economic and social philosophies. The others -Mitterrand, Trudeau and Italian Prime Minister Amintore Fanfani - lean more to the center and the left...