The United States will seek to force the European Union to choose between the US and China on trade, according to briefings circulated to senior ministers and officials after Tánaiste Simon Harris’s meeting in Washington last week with US commerce secretary Howard Lutnick.
Right, but China is untrustworthy in a standard international wheeling and dealing sense, while Russia and the US are both direct, existential threats to the EU and its constituent nations.
Yes - they’d be best off avoiding entanglements with all three, but their very survival might depend on allying with China against an overtly hostile Russia and US.
Trump: dump china if you want to be my friend
EU: no thanks
China: Finally, I’ve wanted to be friends for so long
EU: no thanks
That would certainly be a good way to play it.
But really- the EU doesn’t want to alienate China too much, because the time could easily come when having China at their back is the only thing that saves them from being spit-roasted by a US/Russia alliance.
Totally, then shouldn’t be rude about it but it looks like to me they want to keep some safe distance from both the coming years. Maybe pull a Switzerland if it actually comes to ww3, but let’s hope not.
It’s a sad world where you always have to consider your actions to not escalate toward a new world war. Things went from okay to bad really quick.
Id use the descriptor volatile for the US and Russia
I guess, in the same sense that ones relationship with two hungry-looking men with their hands wrapped around suspicious bulges in their pockets, advancing on you from opposite ends of a dark alley and already arguing over who gets to keep your watch might be considered “volatile.”