The US is starting to resemble an emerging market more than a developed country, the head of pan-European stock exchange operator Euronext said today as financial markets remained volatile after the imposition of sweeping US tariffs.
“Fear exists all over,” Euronext CEO Stephane Boujnah told France Inter radio.
“The country (US) is unrecognisable and we are living in a transition period. There is a certain form of mourning, because the United States that we had known for the most part as a dominant nation resembled the values and institutions of Europe and now resembles more an emerging market,” he said.
Boujnah said investors had been forced to grapple with uncertainty since US President Donald Trump took office in January.
“People have difficulty understanding the volatility of decisions that are made, so this worry is real, and it is a form of intimidation that diffuses in the system and is difficult to navigate,” he said.
Global financial markets are rotating assets and are trying to adapt to a US that they do not recognise after Trump announced global tariffs on imports to the United States, Boujnah said.
Trump has said the tariffs – a minimum of 10% for all US imports, with targeted rates of up to 50% – would help the United States recapture an industrial base that he says has withered over decades of trade liberalisation.
Emerging markets often use tariffs to protect their industries while they try to develop.
Boujnah said there was some good news in that oil prices and long-term rates were down, and that there were flows of money leaving the US to be re-invested in Europe.
European shares rose in early trading on Tuesday from 14-month lows after four sessions of heavy selling in a row, although investors remained sensitive to tariff-related developments, a day after the European Commission proposed counter-tariffs of 25% on a range of US goods.
