Belgian Consul General: Trade Uncertainty Could Delay Investments

Sustained tariff turmoil could eventually delay investments from Belgium, a longstanding partner with Georgia that has intensified its focus on the state in recent years, the country’s consul general told Global Atlanta March 12. 

Speaking weeks before President Donald Trump imposed a sizable “reciprocal tariff” on the European Union, Consul General Katherine Raeymaekers said businesspeople are adaptable, but “uncertainty” is the one word they don’t like. 

“There is no visibility on what might come. Tariffs get imposed, get postponed, get canceled, go higher, lower. Nobody actually really knows,” Ms. Raeymaekers said during a Consular Conversations luncheon sponsored and hosted by Miller & Martin PLLC. 

The seesaw nature of U.S. trade policy is keeping companies guessing, undercutting the predictability they need to make long-term decisions, she said. 

And it’s not just EU policy that affects them: Belgian companies are here for the U.S. market, but they source materials and parts from Canada and Mexico, as well as back home and from third countries.

Of course, elevated tariffs could also cause some companies to consider ramping up or establishing U.S. production, but that won’t happen overnight, said Ms. Raeymaekers, whose economic strategy includes visiting many existing Belgian investors in the region and highlighting their contributions to the U.S. 

“It’s not just like, ‘OK, I’ll move my company.’ Even if you move, you need certainty, you need visibility. A company does not make a million-dollar investment just like that. It will take many years.”

Existing investors will also be pushed to consider whether they should expand in the U.S. or other locales, Ms. Raeymaekers said a day after Europe had issued targeted retaliation on $28 billion in American goods in response to Mr. Trump’s 25 percent steel and aluminum tariffs. 

On April 3, the EU got an even clearer view of how the Trump administration will treat the 27-member bloc, which has its headquarters in Brussels. 

Using a formula experts and economists say focuses more on trade deficits than tariffs, without accounting for U.S. strength in services exports, Mr. Trump unveiled a baseline 10 percent tariff on all countries, slapping higher duties on so-called “bad actors.” The EU, one of the U.S.’s top trade and investment partners, was hit with a 20 percent levy. 

Any slowdown in ties with Belgium and Europe more broadly threatens to dent supply chains linked to Georgia, where a significant chunk of foreign direct investment stems from EU countries like Germany, France, the Netherlands and Switzerland. 

“I think nobody — neither European companies, Belgian companies, and neither U.S. companies — will gain in a trade war,” Ms. Raeymaekers said. 

How Georgia became a Belgian investment leader

Starting with the carpet and flooring industry in Dalton a half-century ago, Georgia became an unlikely leader in attracting Belgian investment into the U.S., now hosting more than 50 companies. 

Getting there involved a blend of serendipity and strategy. Established in Savannah way back in 1834, the Belgian consulate general set up shop in Atlanta in 1972. Then-Gov. Jimmy Carter decided around that same time to put Georgia’s first European trade office in Brussels (it was later moved to Munich). Then as president, Mr. Carter appointed Atlanta newspaper magnate Anne Cox Chambers to the ambassadorship in Brussels, leading to Belgian airline Sabena opening one of the first transatlantic flights to Atlanta in the late ‘70s. 

Ms. Raeymaekers pointed out that Atlanta on June 10 will regain a nonstop flight to Brussels on Delta Air Lines, a symbol of the strong commercial and tourism links between the two regions.

The past few years have underscored these connections, as major Belgian delegations have targeted Atlanta. They included a trade mission led by Princess Astrid in 2023, which brought some 300 companies to the city, as well as the Agoria tech mission the following year, attracting a group of 60-plus innovators. 

But the thrice-weekly flight needs to show solid engagement — and commercial viability — if there is any hope of persuading Delta to upgrade it to a year-round schedule, Ms. Raeymaekers said. 

Of course that means boosting summer travel and study trips, but also highlighting the strong Belgian commercial presence in the Southeast, exemplified by companies like Syensqo, Solvay and UCB, all of which have key operations in Georgia. 

“When a Belgian company wants to invest here, they look at ‘How easily can I get, back and forth?’” 

Spotlighting Belgian innovation

The companies help show that Belgium is about more than chocolate and waffles (yes, great marketing tools), but instead is a country of innovation and excellence in fields like vaccines, biotechnology, petrochemicals, pharmaceuticals, aerospace, artificial intelligence and more.

Ms. Raeymaekers theorized that Belgians abroad tend to blend in wherever they go, speaking the language and contributing to the local economy without drawing too much attention to themselves. 

“We do the job, we’re concise, and we are appreciated for that. But then people don’t know we’re world leaders,” she said. 

As a way to rectify the lack of knowledge locally about the country of 10 million people, her consulate has launched a monthly social media feature on Belgian excellence in the Southeast U.S., most recently focusing on BARCO, which makes advanced visual displays at a Gwinnett factory. 

In March, she also hosted a reception at note Belgian residence in Buckhead with Belgian professors and European-affiliated faculty, followed by visits to meet with the presidents of Emory University and Georgia Tech. 

A collaborative approach on Ukraine, defense and beyond

These initiatives are examples of the collaborative approach that is baked into Belgium’s national ethos, she said. Besides being a “country of battlefields,” a crossroads of prior conflicts surrounded by larger nations, Belgium is also a federal country with three regions: French-speaking Wallonia, Dutch-speaking Flanders and the Brussels region. Dialogue in pursuit of consensus, therefore, is a fact of Belgian life. [From the archive: Belgium a ‘Mini-Europe,’ Well-Versed in Compromise and Contradiction]

That shows up in foreign policy, as Belgium contributes to the EU’s trade policy and support for Ukraine, for which Belgium has provided 2.2 billion euros in military and civilian aid, including armored ambulances, ammunition and maintenance and support of F-16 fighter jets. See a breakdown

As the Trump administration upended the joint approach to countering Russia’s aggression in Ukraine, favoring a more bilateral approach, Ms. Raeymaekers noted that Belgium welcomed talks on a ceasefire that take Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity into account. 

In an apparent reference to Mr. Trump’s labeling of Ukraine’s democratically elected President Volodymyr Zelenskyy a dictator and questioning whether it could have made a deal to prevent the war, she made a clear statement that drew applause from the audience.

“For us, it’s clear there is an aggressor — that’s Russia — and there is a victim, which, in this case, is Ukraine. This being said, we all want peace,” she said, noting that NATO member countries including Belgium’s newly elected government are responding to the Trump administration’s call to spend more on European defense. 

An accidental linguist

A fluent speaker of six languages, Ms. Raeymaekers didn’t grow up desiring a diplomatic career — or even enjoying foreign-language study. 

But what had been an academic pursuit growing up in a multilingual country became a personal one during an exchange program in Argentina, where at 18 years old she began to explain her home country to new friends. 

“It kind of hit me that I love when people ask me questions about Belgium, that I could be kind of a mini-ambassador, explaining what Belgium is all about. And I also learned that I love to try to understand how they reason, how they think, and that’s when I decided I wanted to become a diplomat.”

She picked up Italian during another university exchange, adding it to a repertoire that includes English, French, Spanish, Dutch (her mother tongue) and German. She also has “notions” of Bulgarian, Hungarian and Portuguese thanks to prior diplomatic postings, though she was too busy during her four years in Morocco (2020-24) to pick up Arabic.  

As for Atlanta, she was lured in part by the possibility of heading up a diplomatic post. 

“I can be frank and honest: It was a choice. Nobody forced me; I wanted to come,” she said of the city. “I like the interaction between being a public servant and private interests.”

Having consular affairs under her purview means that she sees the impact of her work up close, which is not the same as negotiating a big international treaty.

“You can really make a direct impact on people’s lives, on companies’ lives, which is rare as a diplomat.” 

One additional area where she hopes to make a dent? Inspiring more people to take bicycles in a city built on the “superiority of the car.”