‘Out of the Question’ — French Business Leaders Reject Macron’s Call to Stop Investments in United States

President Emmanuel Macron’s call for French businesses to stop investing in the United States has been ridiculed and rejected by business leaders in the country.

Paris reacted with rage this week over U.S. President Donald Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’ tariff announcements, with President Macron describing the implementation of reciprocal tariffs as a “brutal and unfounded decision”. Macron went even further though, calling on French and European businesses to cease investing in the United States.

“What would be the message to have big European players who are starting to invest billions of euros in the American economy, at a time when they are hitting us? We need to have collective solidarity,” Macron said per Le Figaro.

Therefore, he said that  “upcoming investments or investments announced in recent weeks” should be “suspended for a while, until we clarify things with the United States of America.”

The same call was made by Economy Minister Éric Lombard, who demanded that French companies show “patriotism” in the face of the trade war. “It is clear that if a large French company agreed to open a factory in the United States, it would give the Americans a point,” he argued.

However, this call has apparently fallen on deaf ears, with prominent business leaders in the country mocking the suggestions and refusing to abandon the American market.

“Some of us fell out of our chairs,” said one of the business bosses invited by Macron to the Élysée Palace this week to discuss the French response to the U.S. tariffs.

“We are not in an administered economy,” raged another, adding: “I don’t give a damn what Macron says. We have operations in the United States. There’s no question of abandoning them like that. We must respect our commitments to our employees, customers, and shareholders.”

A third said, “Stopping investment in the United States is out of the question, especially in the current economic slump.”

Others noted that many French and other European companies rely heavily on the U.S. market and that some may even opt to move their operations entirely to America to take advantage of the comparatively cheaper energy and lower tax burdens.

Major French firms already have significant investments in the U.S. such as wine and spirits giant Pernod Ricard ploughing 240 million euros into building a bourbon distillery in Kentucky. Meanwhile, fashion house Dior has plans to open stores in both New York City and Beverly Hills in the coming months.

U.S. Presidential Envoy for Special Missions and former ambassador to Germany Ric Grenell said that the U.S. should use other financial mechanisms against France if Paris attempts to “manipulate the tariff process” by pressuring companies not to invest in America.

“What the French don’t realize is that there [are] a whole bunch of programs, whether it’s through one of the entities of the United States called the DFC or the [Export-Import] Bank, where we have guaranteed loans, the American taxpayer has guaranteed loans for the French on some big infrastructure projects. And we shouldn’t be doing that. We shouldn’t be helping the French if they’re going to try to manipulate the tariff process so that they always have one up on us,” Grenell said.

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