Philippe Varin, chair of the International Chamber of Commerce, is stewarding the kind of globalist institution which Trump instinctively distrusts. He speaks to Eliot Wilson about championing free trade in an era of protectionism

The International Chamber of Commerce is the world’s biggest representative organisation for business and trade. To establish some sense of scale, the ICC acts as a voice for 45m businesses in more than 170 countries, holds observer status at the United Nations General Assembly and maintains a permanent office at UN headquarters on Manhattan’s East River.

Philippe Varin was elected Chair of the ICC in June last year. A courteous, deliberately spoken Frenchman, he is a product of the École polytechnique and Mines Paris, France’s Ivy League, and began his career at aluminium conglomerate Pechiney in 1978. From 2003 to 2009, Varin was CEO of Corus, Europe’s biggest steel manufacturer, before heading automotive giant PSA Peugeot Citroën from 2009 to 2014.

The last decade has seen him take on broader roles. He has chaired the World Materials Forum since 2014, and was chairman of French nuclear power group Areva and its successor Orano (2015-20) and water and waste management firm Suez SA (2020-22). When he was elected to his ICC role, he set out five pillars for his two-year term of office: international trade, the rule of law, action on climate change, trade digitalisation and multilateral cooperation. I spoke to him recently about how he would pursue these in the economic situation following Donald Trump’s inauguration as president.

Tariffs are on everyone’s lips now, a form of economic strength and coercion central to Trump’s conception of the world. He sees them as part of “a great, beautiful golden age of business”, and wants to impose a 10 per cent duty on all imports to the United States but much higher retaliatory tariffs of 60 per cent or more on rivals like China.

By contrast,........

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