The US weakens Russia, China, and India; but the EU has nothing to celebrate

Brussels – Donald Trump is reshaping the world, its balance of power, and its logic. The US president is moving forward with a plan that is anything but random. It may be unwelcome, but that’s geopolitics. First Venezuela, then Iran. The American military machine has struck two key allies of Putin’s Russia, which is bogged down in a war in Ukraine that has ended up playing into Washington’s hands. This is probably why the EU is rejoicing at the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and the fall of Ayatollah Khamenei. The pro-Russia Iran-Venezuela alliance was a serious cause for concern for the European Union, and removing support from Putin means isolating him even further ahead of talks that will decide the fate of the conflict.

What role will Europe play in this Western bloc? The EU would have preferred that the unpopular governments in both Venezuela and Iran implode from within, with a strategy of supporting the opposition. The decisive intervention of the United States has thwarted all this, putting Europeans in a difficult position: condemning the US would mean antagonising a traditional ally, while endorsing Washington’s stance would mean betraying one’s own principles. The latter path is the one being favoured, in the hope of carving out, if not a role, at least favourable treatment.

The European Union finds itself squeezed, and likely even more so in the future. On one side, the United States imposes its own rules; on the other, China quietly repositions itself and expands its influence across the eastern part of the world. With Iran and Venezuela no longer supporting Russia, Beijing remains Moscow’s main ally. It is the People’s Republic that is increasingly penetrating Russia economically, and the new Sino-Russian bloc will be the other player that Europeans will have to reckon with.

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The surge in oil prices resulting from the endless war in the Middle East risks hurting Europeans, who are short of raw materials and forced to buy what little fossil fuel they still use, and penalising the Chinese economy, which is still dependent on crude oil. China can still buy Russian oil and gas, but it can also turn the tap off even further on the raw materials Europe needs for its sustainable agenda, which could spark an open Sino-European clash with results yet to be seen. The club of 27 seems to be losing the most from the US’s actions, which are taking advantage of Russia’s difficulties, stuck in its war, as unconditional European support hands the international chessboard to Trump, who is moving his pieces.

India also stands to lose a great deal from this conflict in the Middle East. India imports over 85 per cent of its domestic oil requirements, and about half of its crude oil imports currently pass through the Strait of Hormuz, which has been closed in the wake of the bombings. For the New Delhi government, this means halting its economic growth, unless it turns even more to the Kremlin, at a time when the EU signs a free trade agreement with India, which Trump immediately calls into question.

After imposing trade tariffs on the entire world, the United States is now further impoverishing global economies, particularly its main competitors, by increasing crude oil prices, making them less competitive and less able to keep pace with the United States.

 In this new phase, which is essentially a race for control of resources and territory, the European Union is falling behind. The 27 are left chasing the moves of an ally who, in the way it engages (or fails to engage) with the Old Continent, shows little sign of being one. In the new game of ‘Risk’ imposed by force by Trump’s United States, the EU is only playing at generalised rearmament in a context of regionalised world war. We await the repositioning of a China that has so far remained silent but is attentive to what is happening.