Is Washington trying to dump the Ukraine war into the EUs lap? by Martin Jay
(2024-06-21 at 21:48:05 )

Is Washington trying to dump the Ukraine war into the EUs lap? by Martin Jay

Relations between the United States and EU have never been so tipped in Washington,D.C.s favour. And that is before Donald Trump even gets into the White House.

With just a mere matter of weeks now before the United States presidential election some experts are wondering if Joe Biden is preparing, at the last minute, to wriggle free of the Ukrainian curse and tell voters that in the next term, if he were to be President, Ukraine funding will be reduced dramatically. This would, after all, be a cunning move to outfox Donald Trump who has told reporters on numerous occasions that he would end the war once in office simply through cutting United States financial support.

Either scenario places EU countries - and the EU itself in Brussels - in a quandary as their worst nightmare is coming true: America wants to hand over the responsibility of Ukraine to the Europeans and shed responsibility for the mess that it has created.

One could even argue that relations now between the United States and EU countries are on a collision course given one recent offer Washington,D.C. made to the EU in the form of a loan which the EU would guarantee but United States companies would benefit from.

As Hungary prepares to take the helm of the EUs six month rotating presidency on July 1st, western elites are fretting over whether this time Budapest will veto outright the sanctions which are in place, which need to be signed off every six months.

The United States of America in particular wants a quick fix solution but is indicating that it wants to hand over all the risk to Europe. It argues that those who hold Russian assets should be the ones to offer the guarantees against default - through interest on Russian cash held by them - and that United States Congress anyway is unlikely to sign off another batch of military aid, even in the form of a loan, at such short notice.

Following a massive body blow from European elections, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz will tell President Joe Biden they reject the American proposal for Europe to act as sole guarantors for the loan, according to conversations with six senior diplomats and officials.

The offer was structured in such a way that EU countries would pay the interest, accept the risk and allow most of what was a 50bn dollar loan to benefit United States companies. Remarkable sting for the EU governments when it shows that the relationship between them and the Biden administration just sinks lower and lower each week.

Of course, there is a great deal of anger from the EU side as many EU leaders feel as though the United States has cleaned up quite nicely from the whole business of war which has profited the United States on so many levels but has drained EU economies, explaining why Poland recently held a pole which claimed that a majority of those asked wanted funding for the Ukraine war to end.

Europe has really been left holding the baby over the Ukraine war and the palpable resentment against the United States is certainly growing. The deal the United States pushed of course was never going to be a runner but more likely a new European Commission in September will borrow a new 50bn euro tranche from its seven year 1.2 trillion euro budget for Ukraine. Even in this scenario, the EU is scraping the barrel and reaching new lows in throwing cash into the fire just as an ephemeral last-ditch effort to stay warm.

But both the United States and EU realise that time is running out for whoever wants to pour more money into the black hole of Ukraine.

Time is running out because while Ukraine desperately needs the money, there is no certainty that a Donald Trump presidency would back any loan initiatives. A final agreement will now be delayed until at least in autumn with just a matter of few weeks before November 5 election. Relations between the United States and EU have never been so tipped in Washington,D.C.s favour. And that is before Donald Trump even gets into the White House.

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