Europe Doesn’t Want to Fight America’s Battles Anymore -by Christopher Caldwell

To listen to the debate in Europe over the chaotic retreat of United States troops from Afghanistan is to be struck by what a huge vocabulary Europeans have developed over the centuries for describing military calamities. What we just witnessed has already been described as a débâcle, a débandade, a dégringolade and a déroute, not to mention a “rout,” a “fiasco” and a “humiliation.”

The question at the heart of these discussions is whether the botched withdrawal is a failure serious enough to merit a rethinking of European-American defense arrangements. The Afghan war was a NATO operation, involving the core of the trans-Atlantic alliance system that dates from the Cold War. American fecklessness has left European leaders infuriated. In Germany, Armin Laschet, who is running to replace his Christian Democratic colleague Angela Merkel as chancellor in national elections this month, speaks of “the greatest debacle NATO has suffered since its founding.”

Read more at: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/03/opinion/afghanistan-europe-nato.html

EU-USA Relations:Biden loses Europe's trust

The first NATO summit of President Joe Biden’s administration — convened even as the resurgent Taliban encircled Afghan cities, no longer defended by U.S. and coalition forces — was a self-congratulatory affair. Donald Trump was out, and that was enough for the allied representatives to cheer.

“There was a real appetite for the nice words ... after the Trump years,” a Central European official recalled of the June 14 summit, acknowledging that, in order to satisfy that appetite, political leaders chose “to avoid the difficult discussions and especially to avoid talking about Afghanistan in a more critical view.”

READ MORE AT: Biden loses Europe's trust

EU:-US relations: Disbelief and betrayal: Europe reacts to Biden’s Afghanistan ‘miscalculation’

ow, the American president’s decision to allow Afghanistan to collapse into the arms of the Taliban has European officials worried he has unwittingly accelerated what his predecessor Donald Trump started: the degradation of the Western alliance and everything it is supposed to stand for in the world.

Across Europe, officials have reacted with a mix of disbelief and a sense of betrayal. Even those who cheered Biden’s election and believed he could ease the recent tensions in the transatlantic relationship said they regarded the withdrawal from Afghanistan as nothing short of a mistake of historic magnitude.

Read moe at: Disbelief and betrayal: Europe reacts to Biden’s Afghanistan ‘miscalculation’ – POLITICO

EU-US Relations: U.S., EU agree to end tariff turbulence over Boeing, Airbus

U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai said the U.S. and the EU have come to terms on a five-year agreement to end their dispute over aerospace sector subsidies. (Jasper Juinen/Bloomberg)
The deal the United States and the European Union reached Tuesday to end their long-running dispute over subsidies to Boeing and Airbus will mean the phase-out of billions in punitive tariffs. It will ease transatlantic tensions, and it will allow the two sides to focus on a common economic threat: China.

But the breakthrough leaves other trade frictions between the U.S. and the EU unresolved. Most prominently, the import taxes that then-president Donald Trump imposed on European steel and aluminum three years ago have been left in place by President Joe Biden. Whether progress on that vexing issue can be resolved soon remains unclear.

Read more at: U.S., EU agree to end tariff turbulence over Boeing, Airbus | CBC News

EU-US Relations: EU calls on Biden to form ‘new transatlantic pact’ - by Alexandra Brzozowski

Hours before Joe Biden was to be sworn in as the next US president on Wednesday (20 January), EU leaders extended the invitation to cooperate more closely but also warned that four years of the Trump administration had changed the nature of transatlantic ties.

“This new dawn in America is the moment we’ve been awaiting for so long,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told the European Parliament plenary in Brussels, hailing Biden’s arrival as “resounding proof that, once again, after four long years, Europe has a friend in the White House.”

Read more at: EU calls on Biden to form ‘new transatlantic pact’ – EURACTIV.com

EU-US Relations after Trump: What Should Europe Expect from a Biden Trade Policy? – by Uri Dadush

The European Union-United States trade and investment relationship remains the world’s most intensive even after Brexit. Trade between the U.S. and the EU (minus the United Kingdom) totalled around $1 trillion in 2018, about a third larger than U.S. ties with China. EU27/U.S. bilateral FDI stocks surpassed $4.5 trillion, dwarfing those with China. Despite the frequently differing positions of EU members on trade policy, the EU-U.S. relationship stood the test of time and continued to deepen. But, over the last four years, President Trump’s strictly transactional approach to trade policy, with an obsessive emphasis on reducing bilateral deficits, has amounted essentially to managed trade and is diametrically opposed to the principle of non-discrimination enshrined in multilateral trade disciplines, which Americans and  Europeans worked together to establish.

There is little doubt that a Biden Presidency would mark a toning down of EU-U.S. tensions and a return to civility. Attitudes across the Atlantic will converge again in important areas such as climate change. Surprisingly, voters who identify as Democrats are far more likely than Republican voters to support open trade, even though that is not the case in the U.S. Congress. 

Although Biden appeals to many in the rust belt and has supported steel tariffs in the past, the present tariffs on steel and aluminium, based on Section 232 (national security), are hardly compatible with rebuilding alliances. A way will be found to eliminate them or replace them with other mechanisms. The threat of auto tariffs, which are widely opposed anyway, is certain to fade. Biden, of Irish ancestry, has said that a trade deal with the U.K. should be conditional on preserving peace on the island of Ireland in line with the Good Friday Agreement. This is generally seen as requiring a continued open border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, in keeping with the U.K.’s withdrawal agreement from the EU.



Read more at: 
What Should Europe Expect from a Biden Trade Policy? – BRINK – News and Insights on Global Risk

EU-US relations: Pompeo warns against Chinese, Russian influence on European tour

Beijing and Moscow pose a threat Czech energy independence, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Wednesday in Prague. Speaking after his meeting with Prime Minister Andrej Babis, the top US diplomat warned of what he said were the risks of expanding the Dukovany nuclear power plant.

"Partnering with Russian and Chinese nuclear companies will in fact undermine the Czech Republic's national sovereignty," he said.

Note EU-Digest: Who made America boss over EU members decissions?

Read more at:
Pompeo warns against Chinese, Russian influence on European tour | News | DW | 12.08.2020

EU-US Relations: A Biden Victory Could Reset Transatlantic Relations : by Alex Soros

NEW YORK – In his opening address to the European Council on Foreign Relations’ (ECFR) annual meeting, German Foreign Affairs Minister Heiko Maas claimed that regardless of the outcome of the US presidential election this November, Europeans “will have to think about how to better contain the conflicts in Europe’s vicinity, even without the US.”

His view is a popular one. Many European pundits, such as Janan Ganesh and Wolfgang Münchau of the Financial Times, have argued that US-EU relations would not change significantly even if a Democrat were to defeat US President Donald Trump. A Democratic president, the argument goes, would still be protectionist on trade, sympathetic to the American public’s supposed isolationist instincts, and equally unenthusiastic about writing checks to defend Europe. This description was initially applied to Senators Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Bernie Sanders of Vermont, despite their strong support for international cooperation and human rights. Now some Europeans are extending it to Joe Biden.

But the idea that Biden would bring no real change to US policy toward Europe beggars belief. Biden has always been a staunch transatlanticist, and over the course of his decades-long political career, he has forged close relationships with key European leaders, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel. As vice president from 2009 to 2017, Biden was always available to provide personal diplomacy when President Barack Obama was not.

While European pundits are correct to doubt that the old transatlantic alliance will simply return to its pre-Trump state, they are underestimating what a Biden victory would mean for US foreign policy. The Democratic Party is still a party of values, and a Biden administration would pursue a full reset after four years of Trump, restoring America’s historic commitment to responsible leadership on the world stage

Whereas Trump has spent his time in office starting fights with Europe over climate change, trade, and human rights, Biden would bring America back to the diplomatic table. The United States would rejoin the Paris climate agreement, pursue new trade deals, and participate in cooperative efforts to ensure that technological innovation conforms with human-rights standards.

In the European Union, America’s image is at an all-time low, thanks to the Trump administration’s slow, incoherent, and ineffective response to the COVID-19 crisis, a major part of which comprised blaming other countries, rather than cooperating with them. Instead of combating the crisis using the resources of the World Health Organization and other multilateral organizations, the US banned travel from Europe without warning and announced it would defund the WHO. One of Biden’s first foreign-policy objectives will surely be to rectify this and to treat COVID-19 as the global crisis it is. That means leveraging international cooperation to protect Americans from the pandemic (and its attendant economic devastation), as well as lead global efforts to combat the threat.

With Biden in the White House, European telecoms like Nokia and Ericsson would be recognized and supported as the transatlantic alliance’s 5G champions, and the US would help Europe wean itself off Russian gas as it works toward its clean-energy transition. A Biden administration also would recognize the wisdom of negotiating a renewal of the New START nuclear-weapons treaty with Russia when it expires in 2021. And it would pursue other forms of arms control to advance European and US security interests and prevent a new arms race.

More to the point, a Biden administration would uphold its end of any bargain, and would be trusted to maintain America’s commitments to partners and allies around the world. The only question is whether Europe, too, would be prepared to make the tough choices needed to reinvigorate the alliance.

Trump has allowed Europe to avoid such choices, because his outlandish behavior has distracted attention from most other issues. For example, with all eyes on the intensifying Sino-American feud, the EU has become more accommodating to China. In early June, Josep Borrell, the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs, declared that Europe does not regard China as a military threat. And while US political leaders from both parties have loudly condemned China’s imposition of a new security law in Hong Kong, the EU’s reaction has been relatively meek.

Lest we forget, the EU is the world’s largest trading bloc. With enough determination, Europe, working closely with the US, could have considerable leverage when it comes to promoting a rules-based multilateral system. But to do so, it will have to expend political and diplomatic capital.

Read the complete report at: 
A Biden Victory Could Reset Transatlantic Relations by Alex Soros - Project Syndicate

EU - US relations: The straw that broke the camels back - First Thing: the pandemic has broken Europe's trust in American leadership

A survey of opinion across nine EU countries has found Europeans’ perception of the US deteriorating because of the pandemic. More than 60% of respondents in Germany, France, Spain, Denmark and Portugal said they had lost trust in American leadership. According to the authors of a report accompanying the survey:

Read more at:
First Thing: the pandemic has broken Europe's trust in American leadership | US news | The Guardian

EU-US relations: This chart shows just how badly the U.S. coronavirus response has damaged America’s reputation in Europe

The European Council on Foreign Relations surveyed 10,000 Europeans in nine countries, which make up about two-thirds of the European Union, to get their opinions on how governments have responded to the COVID-19 outbreak that has infected 9.5 million and killed more than 484,000 and counting around the world.

And the report found what it called a“shocking” collapse of the image of the U.S. in the eyes of many Europeans. China suffered a drop in public opinion, as well.

Read more at:
This chart shows just how badly the U.S. coronavirus response has damaged America’s reputation in Europe - MarketWatch

EU-US Relations: Europe is abandoning Trump on the world stage as it turns away from the US toward China

President Donald Trump is presiding over the deterioration of the US’s position on the world stage as European countries increasingly look toward China as a future global leader.

This shift is apparent in a series of recent opinion polls that found European sentiment toward the US to be in decline since the start of the coronavirus pandemic.

Recent polling suggests Europeans are turning away from the US under President Donald Trump’s leadership.

Public opinion toward America has declined in major European countries since the start of the coronavirus pandemic.

Seventy-six percent of Germans in a new poll said their view of America had deteriorated since the start of the crisis.

Roughly equal numbers of Germans in the poll favored maintaining close relationships with China and the US over the other.

One poll last week found that just 2% of French people trusted Trump to provide world leadership.

China is exerting growing political, diplomatic, and financial power across Europe.

Read more at:
Europe is abandoning Trump on the world stage as it turns away from the US toward China

EU-US Relations: Donald Trump is currently a bigger headache for Europe than Iran is - by Luke McGee,

This week's escalation in tensions between Iran and the US has exposed an uncomfortable reality for many of America's friends in Europe.

When US President Donald Trump called on the UK, Germany, France, Russia and China -- the other nations signatory to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, otherwise known as the Iran deal -- to join him in walking away from the JCPOA, he was asking his European allies to do far more than isolate Iran

The Iran deal, which was signed under the auspices of the European Union, is the single biggest foreign policy achievement in the EU's history.

It was the EU that drove efforts to get all of the significant parties to the table. In doing so, it not only encouraged Iran to engage with the West, but it crucially created a forum in which the EU could start to navigate what is now its chief aim in foreign policy."The EU's top priority is balanced relations between the big two: China and America," said Steven Blockmans, head of foreign affairs at the European Center for Policy Studies.

In 2020, another American president is arguably a far bigger disruptor to the old continent than, China, Iran or Russia. What a difference 72 years can make.

Read more at: Donald Trump is currently a bigger headache for Europe than Iran is - CNN

EU-US Relations: Trump Administration simply can not be trusted by its Allies anymore

Last December, Trump abruptly announced that he was pulling all U.S. troops out of Syria, prompting Defense Secretary James N. Mattis to resign in protest. “You’re going to have to get the next secretary of Defense to lose to ISIS,” he told Trump.

This summer, the president blocked nearly $400 million in military aid to Ukraine, a U.S. ally fighting a Russian-backed insurgency. House Democrats are examining whether he withheld the arms to get Ukraine to dig up dirt on a potential 2020 political rival, former Vice President Joe Biden.

In Europe, Trump has repeatedly questioned why the United States is still in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the 29-nation defense alliance that has protected the continent for 70 years — and which rushed to America’s aid in Afghanistan after 9/11.

Trump even questioned the U.S. military alliance with Japan, complaining that Japan exports cars to the United States but isn’t required to defend our shores.

“Our allies take advantage of us far greater than our enemies,” he said en route to a recent summit — with our allies.
 
In reference to the above, it must also be noted that the US has been one of the strongest advocates in promoting the admission of former Eastern European Bloc countries for membership in the EU.

Unfortunately many of these Eastern European countries admitted as members into the EU, including Poland and Hungary, have shown a complete disrespect for the impartiality of their Judicial system, freedom of the Press,, and other democratic institutions, to which they, as members of the EU must subscribe to. Many of these Eastern bloc countries have also become strongholds for nationalist and populist movements.

Yes indeed, it is high time the EU Commission starts putting  "their money where their mouth is" and stop "pussy footing" around with the US and start developing its own independent course,. in conjunction, and in unity with all the member states re: foreign policy, military development and international policy.

The lesson we should learn from all this probably is from what German Chancellor Angela Merkel said last year: "Europe can no longer rely on the United States as a partner".

EU-Digest 

US Meddling agsin in EU Government Affairs: US Senate approves Nord Stream 2 Russia-Germany pipeline sanctions

 A US political action against an Independent EU State which has feathers ruffled in the EU.

Read full report at:
US Senate approves Nord Stream 2 Russia-Germany pipeline sanctions | News | DW | 17.12.2019

EU-US Relations: Trump escalates fight over tax on tech giants - by Naomi Jagoda and Emily Birnbaum

The long-running fight between the U.S. and Europe over how to tax American tech giants is heating up.

The Trump administration on Monday proposed retaliating against France for a tax on digital services, floating $2.4 billion in tariffs, and Paris is vowing to hit back. 

The dispute is raising pressure on international negotiators to develop a framework for taxing tech companies whose businesses span the globe. But as the complicated talks unfold, the U.S. is threatening to launch more investigations.

 Read more at: Trump escalates fight over tax on tech giants | TheHill

EU-US Relations On Life Support: Donald Trump has dragged America's global reputation to an all-time low: by Simon Tisdall

Atlantic Alliance On Life Support

Europeans, if they can bear to watch, are observing US politics with a mixture of fascination and horror – and it’s all down to Donald Trump. Each week seems to bring another democracy-shattering rumpus, scandalous revelation or shocking tweet. The depth and evident bitterness of America’s public divisions are unsettling for friends and allies who count on dependable US leadership.

It is hard to overstate how badly Trump has hurt America’s worldwide reputation. US presidents have been internationally unpopular before – George W Bush over Iraq, for example, or LBJ over Vietnam. But Trump has sunk to an all-time low.

Opinion surveys reveal the negative impact on US global standing. A 25-nation Pew survey last year found, overall, that 70% of respondents had no confidence in Trump’s leadership. While a majority still held a favourable view of the US, unfavourable views were up sharply from the Obama era. About 70% said the US under Trump did not take sufficient account of the interests of other countries and was doing less to address international problems.

Trump won’t be around forever. But this collapse in trust may have lasting, long-term implications for transatlantic ties. A survey of 60,000 people in 14 EU member states published this fall by the European Council on Foreign Relations found most Europeans “no longer believe the US can serve as a guarantor of their security”. Europe and America risk drifting even further apart in 2020.

Not all this angst can be laid at Trump’s door. But his personal hostility to the EU and individual European leaders, his denigration of Nato, his bypassing of his own intelligence agencies and state department, his collaboration with Russia’s Vladimir Putin, and his willingness to betray staunch allies such as Syria’s Kurds are undoubtedly stoking fears about US reliability in security matters. Trump’s hope of scoring a big pre-election foreign policy “success” adds to the general nervousness.

Some of these fears are structural. Europeans, including Britons, are alarmed by Trump’s disdain for the UN and other multilateral decision-making bodies, and his readiness to ignore international treaties. His go-it-alone chauvinism weakens US leverage. It also shows ingrained disrespect for the global rules-based order that has sustained western liberal democracy in the postwar era.

Trump’s admiration for authoritarian regimes and “strongman” leaders such as Putin and China’s Xi Jinping, when set alongside his electoral shenanigans at home, has strengthened the view that he is no friend to democracy – at a time when democracies everywhere are under sustained attack.

The US under Trump’s baleful tutelage is not only losing influence and respect. It is also, increasingly, a source of and contributor to global woes and instabilities. His unilateral, nationalistic, self-defeating approach threatens deepening trouble across the board next year.

Read more at: Donald Trump has dragged America's global reputation to an all-time low | Simon Tisdall | Opinion | The Guardian

EU-US Relations -Tariffs: Trump weighs new trade investigation to justify tariffs on EU

Trump administration officials are considering whether to start a new trade investigation against the European Union as the window closes for hitting Brussels with automobile tariffs, according to multiple people briefed on the issue.

Such a move would mean that European auto imports wouldn't be subject to duties out of national security concerns, but the trading bloc would be subject to a much broader inquiry, the people said.

Read more at: Trump weighs new trade investigation to justify tariffs on EU – POLITICO

EU-US Relations: Huge trade tariffs on Europe could come soon if US wins WTO fight - by David Reid

The World Trade Organization (WTO) has found that both European planemaker Airbus (AIR.PA) and its U.S. rival Boeing (BA.N) received billions of dollars of illegal subsidies in a pair of cases that have run for 15 years.

Both sides have threatened tariffs after the Geneva body found neither adhered fully to its findings. However, the United States has a head start, with the European Union having to wait until early in 2020 to hear what level of retaliation it can exact over Boeing.

The WTO is expected this week to reveal the amount of EU goods the United States can target. People familiar with the case say the three-person tribunal is expected to award it around $7.5 billion, a record for the 24-year-old watchdog.

Such retaliation rights are rarely granted by the WTO - most parties reach settlements - and in many cases complainants do not exercise their rights.

The United States though has indicated it will target EU goods to the fullest extent.

It has already published a $25 billion list from which it will pick items to target from aircraft and aerospace parts to wine, cheese and luxury goods.
The WTO award in the world’s largest corporate trade dispute could fuel already strained trade tensions, diplomats say.

Read more at: Huge trade tariffs on Europe could come next week if US wins WTO fight

EU-US Relations: Trump Seems to Hate the EU. Is It Because He Already Had a George W. Bush Florida Orange Juice Moment?

Trump and his administration have been especially hateful of the EU with respect to Brexit, and their impudent encouragement of the UK to leave the Union, and on top of that to even do so without a Brexit deal, the so called hard or no-deal Brexit.

The latest of the Trump Administration’s EU bashing came this week from Trump’s National Security Adviser John Bolton who advertised a no-deal Brexit with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and the British public with the prospects of a fast US-UK trade deal.

Bolton, however, also shyly admitted that such a deal wouldn’t probably take the form of a comprehensive all-out agreement but would likely be negotiated “in pieces” and stages.

Critics have reacted that to get even that, the UK would have to give the Trump Administration a lot of concessions and backing on all sorts of top-level global political issues.

Diplomatic tone and manners aside, it has got to be pointed out categorically that downgrading, diminishing, or even destroying the EU does not make sense from the point of view of America’s best interests. This is so self-explanatory that there is no need go into much detail here. It suffices to remind everybody that the West rests on two pillars – North America and (Western) Europe – the USA and the EU, respectively. And if one of those two pillars sabotages or undermines the other, that could lead to the collapse of the entire structure.

The fact that Brexit could actually prove a blessing, rather than a curse to the EU but effectively removing the countless British vetoes to the deepening and widening of EU integration is a whole other story.

Trump first seriously raised eyebrows on the other side of the Atlantic with his campaign speeches, and his first post-inauguration interview in January 2017, in which he openly bashed the European Union.

Read more: Trump Seems to Hate the EU. Is It Because He Already Had a George W. Bush Florida Orange Juice Moment?

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EU-US relations under Trump - "not impossible he changes"

The US, once leader of the free world, needs a President that would not spread hate, top EU politician Guy Verhofstadt said on Twitter.

At this point, a re-election of Trump next year could go either way, this analyst believes.

"If he continues along the path that he's on and the way in which he has, I think, consciously been pushing the Europeans hard and uncomfortably and in a way that they are not accustomed to, yes, it's quite possible that in another four years the relationship could be much more divisive.

But one thing that I think Europeans need to bear in mind is that when George W. Bush ran for a second term, the policy in his first term and his second term were very different, specifically with respect to the EU. So it's not impossible that Mr. Trump too can make a change."

Europeans are very unhappy with the changes Trump did make during his first term.

Read more: EU-US relations under Trump - "not impossible he changes" | Euronews

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