Because the German-style Europe is a bulls-eye with China
There is a strong feeling in Washington that Europe has seized the transition phase in the US government to make deals with China that would have been difficult to close with a Trump and Biden administration in full power. The comment by Carlo Pelanda
A detail in the final phase of the bilateral investment agreement between China and the European Union ( Bit) makes us reflect on the need for a better framing of the Chinese question in Euro-American relations.
Biden expressed marked dissatisfaction because the EU, in the German presidency, did not consult with his team when it was drafting a compromise with Beijing, accelerating it also due to the unusual pressure of Xi Jinping.
The point is that Europeans have no economic interest in quarreling with the US, but they also need not to overdo it with China, in a situation where the Biden administration is giving signals that it will want to continue the pressure against China. itself, perhaps even more than Trump. For example, the appointment of Katherine Tai, of Taiwanese origin, as head of foreign trade and promoter of the criterion of rights and fair trade in economic agreements, is a sign of this.
Germany, the real owner of the negotiations between Brussels and Beijing, has tried a circle-bust tactic. On the one hand, he emphasized the westbindung, that is the Atlantic link, and proposed (via the leader of the EPP in the EU parliament, Weber) a customs treaty between the EU and the US similar to that with Canada. On the other hand, it accepted the Chinese negotiation acceleration (in agreement with France) corroborated by openings never made before by Beijing.
This tactic, however, gave Biden's team a signal of ambiguity and unreliability in a context where other solid allies of the United States (in particular Japan, Australia, N. Zealand and South Korea) have accepted the Chinese project of a ' free trade area in the Pacific.
In summary, there is a strong feeling in Washington that the allies have seized the transition phase in the US government to make deals with China that would have been difficult to close with a Trump and Biden administration in full power. There is a risk that America will react harshly at a disadvantage for European exports.
To minimize this risk, a solution could be to generate a framework agreement between the EU and the US where the former agrees with the latter a perimeter space of commercial relations with China in exchange for a privileged market and political relationship with the US itself. . In this way the market would have a clear signal of what can be done and what would be vulnerable to tariffs and sanctions. Without such a perimeter clarification, uncertainty would compress global trade flows to the detriment of everyone.
www.carlopelanda.com
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/perche-leuropa-alla-tedesca-e-cerchiobottista-con-la-cina/ on Sun, 27 Dec 2020 07:45:52 +0000.