Opinion | The Failure of Europe’s Feeble Muscle Flexing - The New York Times
▻https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/10/opinion/europe-iran-nuclear-deal.html
By Anna Sauerbrey
Ms. Sauerbrey is an editor and writer at the German daily newspaper Der Tagesspiegel and a contributing opinion writer.
.... while on the surface, #Europe seems to press on with business as usual, the tectonic plates of trans-Atlantic relations are shifting. For Europe, a direct neighbor of the Middle East, the stakes of Mr. Trump’s risky Iran strategy are extremely high; in January, Europeans learned that the American president would put the Continent’s security interests at risk without batting an eye. This, as well as the bitter lessons learned from the Instex experiment, illustrate once again how hard it is to run an independent foreign policy in a #dollar world in which the United States is weaponizing trade. European policymakers have been left with both a sense of urgency and a feeling of utter impotence. Not a comfortable pairing.
At present, it looks like German foreign policymakers are willing to live with it, for lack of better options and for fear of retaliation if they step out of line. They are sustained by a vague hope that Iran’s nuclear program can be contained until the American presidential election. If Donald Trump is re-elected on Nov. 3, however, a tipping point may be reached: The danger of sticking with the United States will outweigh the danger of letting go. Alternate partners have already offered themselves: Both China and Russia have long worked on diminishing their dependency on the dollar and on financial transaction channels dominated by the United States. They have followed Europe’s Instex initiative with great interest, offering to join in. So far, Germany has declined the offer.
#UE #etats-unis #usd