In Florida, for the annual meeting of the Personal Care Products Council, the US counter part of Cosmetics Europe. By coincidence, the conference is in walking distance of Mar O Lago, the weekend retreat of the new US President.

How to interpret the intentions of the new administration is the talk of the town. Peter Thiel, the German born tech entrepreneur and Trump supporter, once said that we should take President Trump ‘seriously, but not literally‘. But the feeling here is we should actually take him literally too.

That may mean radical new initiatives on trade, immigration, where the new President has already made his mark, and regulation.

We in the European industry set great store by so called Better Regulation - the idea that regulation should be evidence-based and proportionate. But President Trump appears to want de-regulation, and least in some sectors, something that is not seriously on the agenda in the EU. It is reported that each new business regulation will have to take the place of two others – a quantitative, not merely qualitative removal of restrictions.

Where does the cosmetics and personal care industry stand? Well, my US colleagues have long supported federal regulation in the US. In Europe, we have had a sophisticated and evolving regulation since 1976 [note for historians: Gerald Ford was President]. But there has not been a federal cosmetics regulation in the US since 1938 [FDR was in the White House].

However, while the President of the US can bestride the globe as the most powerful man in the world, what we sometimes forget in Europe is that the US has a federal system. Individual states can, and do, regulate cosmetics, whatever the views of the federal government. Just as in the EU, this can be a problem for companies (almost all) who do business across states.

So in the US we see one version of the paradox of regulation, (the paradox wilfully ignored by the Brexit fundamentalists) – that regulation, done well, not only protects consumers, it also facilitates trade. It remains to be seen whether the efforts of PCPC to get a federal regulation in place for the first time in nearly 80 years will progress in this turbulent new era.

John Chave, Director General, Cosmetics Europe