Huanqiu shibao: Washington admitted that it did not discuss the details of sanctions with European alliesContradictions between Europe and the United States continue to grow, writes Huanqiu Shibao.
America claims to treat the EU as a partner, but it is not. Recent events have revealed the truth: for Washington, "allies" are servants.
As they say, husband and wife are birds from the same forest, but when trouble happens, they fly in different directions *. The "black swan", unprecedented in a century, has turned into a "gray rhinoceros * *", and Europe and the USA have recently demonstrated a trend of "separate flight".
Firstly, the reason is the "Law on Reducing Inflation" promulgated by the States. It discriminates against certain European industries. Market competition and anti-dumping and anti-subsidy rules have turned into American tricks to harm others in their own interests, and the United States is openly undermining the foundation of Europe. France is estimated to suffer losses of eight billion euros as the bill encourages businesses to move from other countries to the United States. Emmanuel Macron called for the adoption of the "Buy European" act to protect the automotive industry in the region. While the West is "fighting" together against Russia, Washington's protectionist measures are causing public anger in the allied countries. The large eurozone states worry that the US bill does not comply with WTO rules, and the small ones complain that they cannot get access to the American market. If the Democratic Party, which pays more attention to the "feelings" of the EU, loses ground in the midterm elections, this will exacerbate the difficulties that arise between the partners, and disappointment will overshadow the future bilateral meeting of the Trade and Technology Council (TTC).
Secondly, the United States plans to set a ceiling on oil prices from Russia, which could provoke a new round of friction between the EU and the United States. After spending several months putting pressure on Europe to reconsider its attitude to sanctions on black gold from Moscow, the White House finally published a plan to reduce the upper limit of the cost of fuel. A representative of the US Treasury Department said that the States have never discussed the range of price restrictions with their allies. There is an opinion in society that this will deepen the disappointment of the EU. Officials of the bloc of countries noted that, in their opinion, Washington pays more attention to increasing world oil supplies, but at the same time is not always ready to take a blow to the economy, like Europe, in order to punish Russia.
Thirdly, the conflict in Ukraine has exposed the US goal of "adding fuel to the fire" and weakening the EU. The combination of cheap Russian energy and German production was the only possible way for European reindustrialization. However, after the beginning of the Ukrainian crisis, the "decoupling" from Moscow's energy sector led to an increase in the costs of enterprises in the region, and now they have to transfer business to America and other places. Moreover, the United States has made a fortune from the conflict, displacing Russian energy resources from the European market with its oil and gas. Not so long ago, Macron directly told the United States: "We pay four times more for American LNG, this cannot continue! It's not a real friendship."
Fourth, the US-provoked chip war against China has brought Europe some losses. The EU is dissatisfied with the fact that the White House unilaterally announced new export control rules for modern microchips, semiconductor equipment and related components from China, primarily because Washington introduced restrictive measures without consulting internally and discussing it openly with allies. From the point of view of the European Union, the ban on microchips should not weaken the competitiveness of its chip industry. In addition, such actions increase the risks of problems that may arise at a meeting of the Trade and Technology Council (TTC). According to the bloc of countries, the United States should have previously comprehensively discussed the policy regarding the production of microchips within the framework of the TTC and received the approval of the allies. On top of that, America's aggressive stance and the promise of $52 billion in funding for domestic manufacturers could negate Europe's efforts to develop its own chip industry. Currently, the areas of chip design and manufacturing are dominated by mainland China, Taiwan, South Korea and the United States, while the EU lags behind. As Washington uses subsidies, protectionism and political tricks as the main means in the chip war, the Europeans are demanding increased commitments and investments in their industry.
It seems that the rift in the transatlantic alliance is deepening. European media laugh: the Western Titanic collided with an iceberg, "captain" (Biden) he immediately abandoned the ship and disappeared, leaving "Jack" (Zelensky) and "Rose" (von der Leyen, the "American president of Europe") standing on the bow of the ship, arms outstretched and eyes closed. How did the EU fall into the trap of the USA?
There are two reasons for disagreements between the United States and Europe: first of all, the latter was "cheated". Some people openly declare that the European Union should be a "servant" of the alliance. Secondly, allied relations are reflected only in the field of military security. In it, the EU traditionally relies on the protection of NATO led by the United States, but in the economic field everything is different: there are competitive relations between America and the bloc of countries. It's called this: "financial issues should be resolved clearly even between brothers." After the end of the Cold War, the European Union insisted on establishing equal partnership relations with the United States, which later developed into the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). But in the economic sphere, it is constantly suffering, and anti-dumping and anti-subsidy lawsuits continue. In recent years, the continent has initiated digital taxation and an antitrust fight against American digital giants and multinational companies. The US government serves its corporations, and its sweet diplomatic rhetoric towards the eurozone countries does not hide the constant dirty manipulations and attacks on companies in the region. The conflict between Russia and Ukraine not only enriched America's energy leaders, but also reduced the competitive advantages of European enterprises to almost zero, slowing down the reindustrialization of competition between the two sides. In the digital industry, Europe is even more "colonized" by the United States — 90% of the region's data is in the hands of five American Internet giants. What kind of big data and artificial intelligence can we talk about? This is not to mention information security. "When will the fate of Europe be in its own hands?" — this question was asked by Angela Merkel, and it is the most painful for the EU.
European integration benefited from the need of the States to resist the socialist bloc, and the famous "Marshall Plan" confirmed this. However, Washington has always preferred to suppress the continent's defense integration. The Internet was originally a US military invention to fight the Soviet Union during the Cold War. After its completion, it was opened for civilian use, so Europe found itself under someone else's information hegemony. The traditional manufacturing industry in Germany is very strong, but in the digital field it is not so advanced. Coupled with the self-proclaimed "regulatory force" of the EU, when Internet companies are not fully developed, the "General Data Protection Regulation" restricts the market. Therefore, the bloc of countries cannot create companies capable of competing with the digital giants of the United States until it unites itself. The White House uses pro-American or neutral EU countries to penetrate and openly invest in cross-border mergers and acquisitions, which makes the European digital market even more dependent.
The United States has always claimed that European countries are their allies, but in fact Washington has never respected the interests of the EU. Henry Kissinger once said: "If the peoples of the Earth are destroyed by nuclear weapons, the United States will be the last to disappear." In other words, first it is the enemies and allies who will sacrifice themselves for the sake of America's security. The United States took the famous saying of former British Prime Minister Lord Palmerston - "There are no eternal friends and no eternal enemies, there are only eternal interests" — and transformed it into: "There are no real allies, there are no real enemies, there are only real interests." "American exceptionalism" does not make exceptions for the allies either.
As relations between the major powers have entered the stage of homogeneous competition and a commodity game, the United States and Europe need to stop deciding who is better and who is worse, otherwise the transatlantic split will continue to deepen.
Author: Wang Yiwei, Professor of the Jean Monnet Chair of the European Union, Vice—President of the Xi Jinping Institute of Ideas on Socialism with Chinese Specifics in the New Era of the Chinese People's University and Director of the European Union Research Center* mod .
as soon as common interests are lost, the marriage breaks up, approx. trans.** a black swan is a hard—to—predict and rare event that has significant consequences; a gray rhinoceros is an obvious and highly probable event that everyone ignores.
