{"id":16304,"date":"2024-07-23T09:19:19","date_gmt":"2024-07-23T09:19:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/?p=16304"},"modified":"2024-08-27T17:52:31","modified_gmt":"2024-08-27T17:52:31","slug":"blowing-up-the-transatlantic-bridge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/2024\/07\/blowing-up-the-transatlantic-bridge\/","title":{"rendered":"Blowing up the transatlantic bridge"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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Be afraid. Be very afraid. In this honeymoon period of the new Labour Government, there\u2019s more than enough to send shivers down the spine: at home the prospect of an austerity Autumn Budget to meet public services pay bills with inevitable tax rises and abroad an extended\/expanded Middle East war and\/or rapid deterioration in Ukraine\u2019s defences despite the imminent arrival of F16s. Plus Trump.<\/strong><\/p>\n

A Trump victory in November is all but certain even with the early momentum behind the new Democrat contender Kamala Harris. The assassination attempt and, even more, legal<\/a> and constitutional<\/a> shenanigans on his behalf increased his lead over Joe Biden, notably in the key swing states. He was up to five points ahead and on a par to win the popular vote this time, with a landslide in the electoral college. Meanwhile, his Democrat rival\u2018s physical and political position was degrading by the day while Trump\u2019s own frailties were overlooked.<\/p>\n

For Europeans Trump 2.0 could spell disaster \u2013 and\/or an historic opportunity. A DJT\/JD (Vance) White House would preside over a more nationalist, isolationist, anti-EU America with walls to keep immigrants out (plus threatened mass deportations of \u201cillegals\u201d) and new draconian tariff barriers erected against European goods. Fortress USA. A reprise of 1930s economic policy built around protectionism (Smoot-Hawley<\/a> 2.0) could herald a fresh global depression.<\/p>\n

Equally worrisome is the stated positions of the Trump\/Vance duo on Ukraine and, what\u2019s more, NATO. Of course, their stated positions come with the usual balm from commentators that it\u2019ll all be different\/tempered when they\u2019re holding the reins but I\u2019m unconvinced: Trump is clearly tempted to cut deals with the autocrats he admires in Moscow and Beijing and throw Zelensky and his EU supporters to the wolves. (That \u201cwell-founded plan\u201d (Farage) to end the war in Ukraine with one phone call).<\/p>\n

The various \u201cplans\u201d to end the Russo-Ukrainian conflict are set out with his customary sobriety and insight by Lawrence Freedman here<\/a>. He concludes: \u201cThe \u2018realist\u2019 demands for Ukraine to make concessions start with an assumption that this is a war Russia is bound to win. Ukraine\u2019s view is that if there is to be any hope of Russia giving up on territory that is has tried to take through conquest then it has to be shown that it cannot win and will be pushed back. Sadly, this is a war without a quick diplomatic fix.\u201d That \u2018realist\u2019 position is one espoused by Trump and his advisers.<\/p>\n

A poisoned chalice for Europe<\/strong><\/p>\n

If a Trump victory, what\u2019s more, comes with Republican control of both Senate and House, the odds against US disengagement from Ukraine will significantly ease. And that will increase the enormous pressure on the Europeans to \u201cdo more\u201d in terms of financing Kyiv\u2019s military responses and providing materiel \u2013 quite aside from the relentless Trump pressure to raise defence spending to 2.5\/3% of GDP.<\/p>\n

Two immediate thoughts arise. First, when the EU already contains a Trump\/Putin Trojan horse in the policies and person of Viktor Orban plus other waverers when it comes to Ukraine, a united European stance is problematic to say the least. And the waverers and doubters are bound to rise in numbers and volume as the Trump presidency ups the ante.<\/p>\n

Second, however much NATO and European leaders, including Keir Starmer, commit rhetorically to that 2.5% spending target how on earth are they going to deliver it. Germany, with its obsession about a balanced budget (das schwarze Null<\/em>) is already cutting back on rather than raising defence spending and on arms deliveries to Ukraine. Meeting the NATO target AND delivering improved public services such as health and education, let alone mitigating inequality and eroding child poverty, would imply a tax take as share of GDP way above 50% and inevitable rises in personal and corporate rates. Political suicide.<\/p>\n

I said opportunity as well as disaster. But that opportunity can only be seized if the EU steps up its shared policy and funding responses as it did post-pandemic with #NextGenerationEU and the Recovery and Resilience Facility: common debt, industrial consolidation, common defence policy and armed forces, greater, dare I say it, federalism. History and the new world order in the making (towards autocratic\/nationalist rule `a la Putin, Xi and Modi) are pushing Europe that way.<\/p>\n

And Britain?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Our new foreign secretary, David Lammy, and his boss, Starmer, clearly embrace the old notion of the UK as transatlantic bridge between America and Europe. Lammy has begun cultivating likely movers and shakers in a Trump 2.0 White House such as Vance and among Republican congressional leaders while pointing to renewed EU-UK relations, including a\u00a0 yet to be defined common defence pact.<\/p>\n

Sooner or later, however, Britain\u2019s straddling efforts will break under unbearable stress and we\u2019ll be forced to make an historic choice. For this correspondent that can only be a fully European option. Remaining a satrap to a USA that\u2019s increasingly troubled by its imperial decline is no option at all.<\/p>\n

An updated version of a post on the author’s Cosmopolitan Villager Substack<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Featured image by Ninian Reid CC BY-SA 2.0<\/em><\/p>\n

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The imminent advent of a Trump 2.0 presidency is concentrating the mind of Europeans as they confront more tumultuous instability at home and abroad. More Europe is, with all its attendant risks, the only preferred option<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7091,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[421],"tags":[30,150,709],"class_list":["post-16304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international","tag-europe","tag-trump","tag-us-election-2024"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16304"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16304\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}