Former CDS-PP leader believes that the only country that knew how to negotiate its trade policy with the United States was China. Tariffs bring consequences for Portugal and the European Union
Paulo Portas this Thursday classified the North American tariff policy as a “disguised austerity program”, so far without visible results in reducing the deficit, and a symptom of a misalignment between the geopolitical objectives and the US geoeconomic instruments.
The former leader of the CDS-PP spoke about the “consequences for Portugal and the European Union of the US customs policy and the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East”, at the opening of a seminar on the State Budget for 2026 (OE2026) organized in Lisbon by the Forum for Competitiveness, AESE Business School and Deloitte.
For the former deputy prime minister of the Government of Pedro Passos Coelho (PSD/CDS-PP), the only country that knew how to negotiate its trade policy with the United States of America was China. In general, political leaders continue to pursue “a kind of open doctorate [sobre] how to deal with Donald Trump.”
Portas, current member of the Board of Directors of the construction company Mota-Engil, noted that, despite the “exponential increase” in revenue achieved with tariffs, the deficit of the largest world power is expected to increase in 2025, not being “even enough to cover the increase in expenditure inertia”.
“Tariffs are an undeclared austerity program – or a disguised austerity program. First of all, those who pay American tariffs are American importers and American consumers. There are many more people who pay them indirectly, but these two certainly [sofrem um impacto direto]”, he stated.
“It’s as if we were all called upon to contribute to controlling something that Americans don’t want to control, which is their deficit. The United States, since the financial crisis, has become accustomed to deficits between 5% and 8%, annually, successively. And this year will be no different, despite the ‘shutdown’, which has limited spending for at least almost a month”, he highlighted.
Portas recalled that the United States has always balanced between more open trade policies and more closed trade policies.
“Neither protectionism nor isolationism are new trends in American history. America has always been a pendulum between multilateralism (or even expansionism) and isolationism”, he stressed, to emphasize that the distinctive character of this moment is the existence of a gap between geopolitical objectives and the economic instruments used to achieve them.
As an exponent of the misalignment he speaks of, Portas cited the different relationship that the Administration maintains with China and India, particularly in tariff treatment.
Portas noted that, for Trump, China is seen as an economic power, the same is not true of India. However, he warned, “time will take care of explaining to the American Administration that it should not be so definitive” about the Indian Republic.
“India is much closer to the West from the point of view of values and institutions – it will always be an adversary of China in its DNA”, he reinforced.
“We are used to, whatever the American Administration, a certain alignment between geoeconomic instruments and geopolitical objectives. Now there is great confusion and, often, a contradiction between geopolitical objectives and geoeconomic instruments. Simply put: you can’t win friends with tariffs,” he said.
Portas says it is difficult to understand how it is possible to “treat an adversary better, on a tariff basis, than an ally”. But that is what is happening, “until there is a review required by the facts”, he stressed.
