Europeans are coming to the bitter realization that the United States isn’t looking out for their economic best interests, that Joe Biden is no more a friend to them than his bombastic predecessor, Donald Trump, and that Washington’s “polite indifference” to its allies’ needs hides the more sinister goal of sucking investment out of the region, a top observer at one of Europe’s largest news media corporations has acknowledged.
“Former United States President Donald Trump was a useful bogeyman for Europe. His successor, Joe Biden, is proving much trickier – a friend who says all the right things but leaves you in the lurch when it counts,” editor at large Nicholas Vinocur wrote in a recent op-ed for Europe's second-largest media outlet.
Vinocur picked up on an unsettling trend in US policy under Biden: taking an action certain to harm Europe’s economic or security interests, and then reacting with “polite indifference” and a “terribly sorry, we didn’t even think of that” message when European leaders inevitably express frustration and dismay.
“From Washington’s surprise withdrawal from Afghanistan,” in which its NATO allies weren’t consulted, “to the transatlantic blowup over submarine sales to Australia (AUKUS),” which robbed France of $50 billion in defense contracts, “and, now, a growing spat over the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which offers tax incentives and subsidies to green US business, the Biden administration has, time and again, caught Europe off guard,” the observer wrote.
European officials have grumbled vociferously over the IRA legislation, which was passed in August, and is designed to ramp up US domestic energy production and clean energy, citing its discrimination of European goods, and violation of World Trade Organization rules on fair trade.
French President Emmanuel Macron has been the loudest in expressing grievances, accusing the US of “double standards” in its trade practices, and of selling energy to Europe “for 3-4 times” what US consumers are being made to pay. “And on top of that, they have taken massive state aid measures in certain sectors that are completely outside our market projects,” he said this month, referring to the IRA.
8 November 2022, 21:45 GMT
In private too, anonymous European officials have complained to local media about US actions, accusing America of profiteering off the conflict in Ukraine via energy and arms sales, and quietly asking whether “Washington is still our ally or not.”
Hundreds of energy-intensive European companies big and small, from steelmakers and chemical giants, to carmakers, fertilizer producers and pharmaceutical firms have already shifted operations to the US, or are in the process of doing so, and European officials fear the IRA may result in the further cannibalization of the bloc’s remaining industrial base.
On top of that, poorly-thought-out shifts to "green energy," whose fruits have proven underwhelming, have further exacerbated the energy crisis pummeling the EU, with Russian President Vladimir Putin warning as far back as October 2021 that the rejection of coal and nuclear power in favor of weather-dependent energy sources like wind and solar power, along with reliance on spot prices for gas, would inevitably lead to higher prices.
Vinocur chalked Washington’s indifference to European concerns to its focus “on what most perceive to be its main existential challenge: China.”
“In that equation, Europe is often an afterthought. It’s just that many on this side of the Atlantic have failed to get the message – or draw conclusions of what it means for the bloc’s future – instead preferring to act out a script of outrage and remonstrance,” the Brussels-based observer lamented.
Vinocur believes “the result” of the US’ focus on its “existential” conflict with Beijing has left Europe in “familiar territory: bruised, confused and scrambling for a response while failing to formulate its own cohesive strategy to contend with China. And instead of receiving solidarity from Washington in a time of war, they feel the US has maneuvered itself into a perfect position to suck investment out of Europe.”
French and German leaders have taken what appear to be the first steps in policies designed to protect their economies this week, agreeing to cooperation and mutual support in energy matters, and signing a joint declaration to “explore industrial policy possibilities” to save industry, but it may be too late, and in any case the EU “will be hard-pressed to inject anywhere near as much money…as Washington has earmarked,” Vinocur fears.
As things stand, “most EU countries are still howling in pain over the high price of gas –much of which they now import from liquid natural gas terminals in Texas,” he wrote.
Ultimately, the observer believes that what European nations are finally beginning to discover is that the security crisis in Ukraine is “just one facet of the US’s larger strategic duel with China, which will always take precedence over EU interests. That was true under Trump, and remains true under his successors. It’s just that the message is delivered in a different style. In the long run, Biden’s polite indifference may prove more deadly.”