[FR] Geopolitical risks: the urgent need for corporate foreign policy

Donald Trump’s first week in power heralds four years of major geopolitical tensions, against a backdrop of trade wars and industrial rearmament. How can French and European companies respond to this challenge, which affects them first and foremost? In this note, Marine Champon, risk management expert and founder of the INITIATIK consultancy, and Sylvie Matelly, economist and director of the Jacques Delors Institute, argue for the adoption of a corporate foreign policy.

After words come actions. On 20 January 2024, the day of his official inauguration, Donald Trump signed a large number of executive orders, turning into reality the speeches and even threats he had been making for several months. These included the withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, increased customs duties, a $500 billion investment in an AI project called Stargate 1, and a national energy emergency to ease regulations on oil and gas exploitation in the United States. During the public signing ceremony, he added this comment about the European Union: ‘Europe is very bad for us. They treat us very badly. They don’t take our cars or our agricultural products. In fact, they don’t take anything.’

Against this backdrop of accelerating global geopolitical tensions, there is one player whose silence is deafening: business, even though all the issues arising from these tensions and economic fragmentation concern it first and foremost. Business has not, or has rarely, questioned its geopolitical role, even though it has become a major player in international relations and issues related to ongoing transitions (energy, climate, digital, etc.). It is time for it to fully embrace this role.