Relaciones Transatlánticas

Europa debe prepararse para el regreso de Trump

Durante el fin de semana, el expresidente estadounidense hizo que muchas cancillerías europeas estuvieran al borde del pánico al alentar a Rusia a atacar a los aliados de la OTAN que no gastan el 2% del PIB en defensa. En esta categoría se encuentran Alemania, Bélgica, España, entre muchos otros Estados europeos. Sería prudente tomar en serio la advertencia.

Donald Trump está muy cerca de obtener la nominación republicana, después de aplastar a sus dos principales rivales dentro del partido en las primarias de Iowa y New Hampshire. Por supuesto, todavía podemos esperar a ver qué pasa con los numerosos casos judiciales abiertos e incluso conceder a Joe Biden, de 81 años, el beneficio de la duda.…  Seguir leyendo »

Trump-Proofing Europe

As Russia’s war in Ukraine enters its third year, Europe has performed far better than expected. For decades after World War II, it counted on the United States to be the ultimate guarantor of its security. The continent relied on Washington to guide NATO policy, provide nuclear deterrence, and forge consensus among European countries on controversial questions such as how to resolve the 2009–12 European debt crisis. Europe continued to take the U.S. security umbrella for granted after the Cold War ended, slashing defense spending, failing to stop the Bosnian genocide in the early 1990s, and refusing to play a political role in resolving the crisis in Syria, even as it remained the region’s biggest provider of humanitarian aid.…  Seguir leyendo »

Chinese President Xi Jinping welcoming French President Emmanuel Macron in Beijing, April 2023. Gonzalo Fuentes / Reuters

In April 2023, French President Emmanuel Macron visited Beijing, where he spent six hours meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping and discussing Europe, Russia, and Taiwan. Then, on the flight home, Macron declared that Europe should strive for “strategic autonomy” from the United States. The continent, he said, should not “take our cue from the U.S. agenda” and should not be “caught up in crises that are not ours”. Macron even argued that European countries should reduce their dependence on the U.S. dollar so as not to become mere “vassals” of Washington.

Macron’s comments were music to Beijing’s ears, but they provoked a furious backlash in the United States.…  Seguir leyendo »

El presidente Joe Biden organiza una reunión virtual con líderes sindicales y empresariales para discutir los beneficios de la Ley de Reducción de la Inflación (IRA) en la Casa Blanca (2022). Foto: Foto oficial de la Casa Blanca por Erin Scott / The White House (trabajo del Gobierno de EE. UU.).

Tema [1]

La nueva estrategia de política económica exterior de la Administración Biden tiene implicaciones para la relación transatlántica.

Resumen

En este análisis se evalúa el cambio actual en la mentalidad de la política económica exterior estadounidense y se destacan las divergencias y los puntos en común entre los enfoques de EEUU y la UE. Mientras que el enfoque estadounidense para la política comercial e industrial gira en torno a un objetivo doble (combatir tanto el cambio climático como el auge económico de China), la UE ha optado por un planteamiento más moderado que entrelaza la política comercial tradicional con una reevaluación evolutiva de la estrategia geoeconómica.…  Seguir leyendo »

Polish and American tanks near Orzysz, Poland, May 2022. Kacper Pempel / Reuters.

The war in Ukraine has sparked a puzzling development in U.S. national security thinking. At the same time as U.S.-European cooperation has surged, an influential group of American scholars, analysts, and commentators have begun pressing the United States to prepare to radically scale back its commitment to Europe. The basic idea is not new: restraint-oriented realists such as Emma Ashford, John Mearsheimer, Barry Posen, and Stephen Walt have long called for the United States to rethink its security posture in Europe.

Now, however, they have been joined by an influential band of China hawks, led by former Pentagon official Elbridge Colby, who argue that the United States must curb its European commitments.…  Seguir leyendo »

El presidente Joe Biden firma la “Ley de Reducción de la Inflación de 2022”, el martes 16 de agosto de 2022, en el Comedor de Estado de la Casa Blanca. Foto: Foto oficial de la Casa Blanca por Cameron Smith vía Flickr.

Tema

Este análisis expone en las principales implicaciones transatlánticas de la Inflation Reduction Act (IRA, Ley de Reducción de la Inflación) de EEUU.

Resumen

La Inflation Reduction Act de EEUU, que destina aproximadamente 370.000 millones de dólares a energías limpias, tiene importantes implicaciones climáticas, comerciales, de seguridad y de política exterior para Europa y para el mundo. Tiene un impacto sustancial en la mitigación de las emisiones de gases de efecto invernadero en EEUU, y fortalece la posición de EEUU en las negociaciones globales sobre el clima. Apuesta por la diversificación de las cadenas de suministro que actualmente dependen en gran medida de China, desde la fabricación de tecnologías de energía limpia, hasta los minerales críticos y las baterías para vehículos eléctricos.…  Seguir leyendo »

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Joe Biden meet for a US-Russia summit in Geneva on June 16, 2021. Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

Almost exactly one year ago, I sat in my office at the US Embassy in Moscow, reading reports of Russia’s brutal military assault on Ukraine. I was numb – but not surprised – by the gravity of what was unfolding.

For weeks, I had been telling everyone I could reach that Russian President Vladimir Putin was going to launch a war on the continent of Europe, the scale of which had not been seen since World War II.

Although confident in my pre-war assessment, I was disconsolate. For two years, I had worked hard as US ambassador to make even modest progress in the few areas in which any dialogue was possible with the Russians.…  Seguir leyendo »

China has accused the United States of “an obvious overreaction” and “seriously violating international practice” after US military jets on Saturday shot down its suspected spy balloon off the coast of South Carolina. This after it had loitered over the US, including sensitive national security sites, for more than four days last week. My reaction to this indignation? Poppycock!

(China has claimed the balloon was for “civilian use” and to monitor weather, and that it only entered US airspace by accident.)

The history of China’s responses to US assets operating in international waters and airspace near mainland China strongly suggests, if the tables were turned, its reaction to a similar scenario would have been precipitous, crude and escalatory.…  Seguir leyendo »

Wind turbines near Zaragoza, Spain, December 2005. Gustau Nacarino / Reuters

Tensions roiled the annual World Economic Forum meetings in Davos earlier this month. Anxious diplomats and business leaders wondered whether China and the United States might de-escalate their confrontation and bury the hatchet. While continuing to endure a pandemic that has upended everyday life for years, Europeans have grappled with the ramifications of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in the form of an unprecedented cost-of-living crisis.

But the forum also witnessed a more surprising confrontation. The United States and its European allies found themselves at odds over recent U.S. economic legislation. European policymakers accosted Senator Joe Manchin, Democrat of West Virginia, for his role in finalizing U.S.…  Seguir leyendo »

US President Joe Biden last week congratulated Benjamin Netanyahu on his return to power as new Israeli prime minister. Getty Images

Barely a week into the most extreme government in Israel’s history, its controversial national security minister, Itamar Ben Gvir, is already demonstrating its right-wing religious and nationalist credentials.

On Tuesday, Ben Gvir visited the Jerusalem compound known as the Temple Mount by Jews and the Haram al-Sharif by Muslims – an action that threatens to upset an already precarious status quo and trigger violence.

Ben Gvir, who has previously been convicted of racist incitement, has vowed to institutionalize Jewish prayer and presence in perhaps the most volatile flashpoint in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. His stated intention for the visit was to mark one of the Jewish fast days.…  Seguir leyendo »

French President Emmanuel Macron, left, and President Biden wave during a ceremony at the White House on Dec. 1. (Alex Brandon/AP)

The United States and Europe find themselves in a closer alliance than at any point in many decades. France has long been the European nation most reluctant to play junior partner in an American-led enterprise. In his first years in office, President Emmanuel Macron did his best to display his Gaullist credentials, describing NATO as “brain dead” and declaring his greatest priority to be developing Europe’s “strategic autonomy”, which he defined, in part, as separate from the United States.

Contrast that with Macron’s remarks in November, when he talked about NATO as a cornerstone of French and European security. While in Washington last week, he described the new goal for the continent as “strategic intimacy” with Washington and spoke of the need for even deeper cooperation.…  Seguir leyendo »

Chinese and Saudi flags adorn a street in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, ahead of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit on Dec. 7. FAYEZ NURELDINE/AFP via Getty Images

In a remarkably prescient 2004 interview, then-Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al Faisal told former Washington Post journalist David Ottaway that the U.S.-Saudi relationship wasn’t a “Catholic marriage”, where only one wife was allowed; it was a “Muslim marriage”, where four wives were permitted. “Saudi Arabia was not seeking divorce from the United States; it was just seeking marriage with other countries”, Ottaway wrote.

That has now come to pass. Nowhere is this more clearly reflected than in Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Saudi Arabia this week—the first since 2016. Xi’s visit won’t be an awkward “let’s mend the fences” fist-bump moment.…  Seguir leyendo »

President Biden speaks to French President Emmanuel Macron at a White House state dinner on Thursday. (Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters)

President Biden’s state dinner on Thursday with French President Emmanuel Macron was a mutual lovefest. But no amount of bonhomie can mask the inevitable incompatibility between the two men’s visions for Europe’s future.

Biden is an Atlanticist at heart. He is fully committed to the U.S.-European relationship, supports NATO wholeheartedly and has courted European leaders since his inauguration. His international and cosmopolitan liberalism also aligns him closely with the values of most Western European leaders, especially on matters such as combating climate change. He is as friendly an American president as European elites could hope for.

Yet he is an American president, and as such, he acts primarily in America’s interests.…  Seguir leyendo »

Biden and Macron at the G-7 summit, Kruen, Germany, June 2022. Ludovic Marin / Pool / Reuters

When French President Emmanuel Macron made his first state visit to Washington in 2018, he was in the midst of a fleeting bromance with U.S. President Donald Trump and the transatlantic alliance was in disarray. A champion of both multilateralism and pragmatism, the French president was on a mission to convince Trump to remain in the 2015 Iran nuclear deal and maintain a significant U.S. military presence in northeastern Syria—neither of which was to be.

Macron’s second state visit, on December 1, 2022, will take place in a very different context. It comes a year after a public spat between France and the United States over the latter’s new security partnership with Australia and the United Kingdom, known as AUKUS, which cost Paris a valuable submarine deal with Canberra, and at a time of renewed transatlantic unity following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.…  Seguir leyendo »

‘Thanks to the Biden administration’s immunity decision, Prince Mohammed now has a level of protection from US legal actions.’ Photograph: Rex/Shuttersto

The Biden administration told a US judge last week that Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi crown prince, should be granted immunity in a civil lawsuit over his role in the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. That decision effectively ends one of the last efforts to hold the prince accountable for Khashoggi’s assassination by a Saudi hit team inside the kingdom’s consulate in Istanbul in October 2018.

It is an act of weakness and political cowardice by Joe Biden’s administration, which staked its reputation on holding Khashoggi’s killers accountable and centering its foreign policy on human rights, rather than accommodating autocrats.…  Seguir leyendo »

It took two years after Joe Biden was elected US President before the leaders of the world’s two most powerful countries could finally speak in person, but when Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping finally met in Bali, Indonesia, on Monday on the sidelines of the G20 summit, the timing could not have been any better for the United States, for democracy and for the world.

With democracy suddenly looking like it’s on firmer ground and key autocracies facing serious problems, it was an ideal moment for Biden to speak frankly to Xi about areas of disagreement between the two superpowers while trying to build safeguards to prevent the rivalry from careening into conflict as the relationship has deteriorated to its most tense state in decades.…  Seguir leyendo »

¿Unidad atlántica en su máximo?

Los líderes europeos respiran con alivio ahora que en la elección de mitad de mandato en los Estados Unidos no se produjo una «ola roja» republicana. La composición definitiva de la Cámara de Representantes todavía no se conoce, pero los demócratas conservan el Senado, y ya está claro que el Congreso no estará lleno de aislacionistas simpatizantes de Donald Trump y de Vladímir Putin. Pero para los europeos, no es momento de celebrar, sino de prepararse para la próxima tormenta potencial.

Durante el año que pasó, Europa disfrutó un extraordinario momento de unidad transatlántica. La alianza con Estados Unidos dio una respuesta unida a la invasión rusa de Ucrania: se impusieron sanciones en forma coordinada y Estados Unidos consultó a los gobiernos europeos antes de llevar adelante conversaciones sobre el futuro de la seguridad europea con el Kremlin.…  Seguir leyendo »

On Oct. 5, a group of oil producers led by Saudi Arabia decided to cut oil production quotas by two million barrels per day starting in November. Ahmed Jadallah/Reuters

Washington is furious at Saudi Arabia: Members of Congress are demanding to freeze all cooperation, halt arms sales for a year and remove American troops and missile systems from the kingdom. President Biden warned of “consequences”.

American rage followed the Oct. 5 decision by OPEC Plus — 23 oil producers led by Saudi Arabia, which includes Russia — to cut oil production quotas by two million barrels per day starting in November.

If the United States follows through on its threats, the Biden administration would be a true maverick in Middle East policy, because no other administration — Republican or Democratic — has ever retaliated against Saudi Arabia in any serious manner for its oil policies.…  Seguir leyendo »

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman meeting U.S President Joe Biden in Jeddah, July 2022 Bandar Algaloud / Courtesy of Saudi Royal Court / Reuters

Last week, Saudi Arabia joined Russia and other petroleum-producing nations in the cartel known as OPEC+ in voting to slash oil production at a moment of historically high energy prices and rising inflation. The timing appears designed not only to fuel Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war machine but also to reverse the aggressive work that the U.S. Congress and the Biden administration have done to counter high inflation rates and bring down gas prices. But this hostile action by Washington’s putative friends in Riyadh did offer one silver lining: it showed that the United States has considerable leverage to correct what has become a fundamentally lopsided relationship.…  Seguir leyendo »

Chinese military conducted live-fire military exercises to intimidate Taiwan after a high-profile visit by Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker, to Taipei in August. Lai Qiaoquan/Xinhua, via Associated Press

Competition and conflict between the United States and China have continued to intensify. On Aug. 2, the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, visited Taiwan to showcase congressional support for the self-governing island, defying Chinese protests that her visit was inconsistent with the “one China” policy of the United States. China responded by ringing the island with live-fire military exercises, missile tests and other operations in the Taiwan Strait.

On Oct. 7, the Biden administration ordered sweeping export controls to prevent China from acquiring the most advanced semiconductors and the equipment required to manufacture them, and forbidding any American or foreign company to sell to China any such equipment that uses American technology.…  Seguir leyendo »