The Internationalism

Internationalism No. 73, March 2025 Page 16 Three years of war in Ukraine. Perhaps with a truce in sight, albeit in the heated climate of the European shock over the Atlantic crisis and the American about-face. Trump wants to make a deal with Putin without regard for Kyiv and the EU; doubts are spreading as to whether America can be trusted anymore. Friedrich Merz, the next head of the German government, has been heard uttering words that would previously have been unthinkable for an Atlanticist like him: We must become independent from the United States; Berlin must agree with London and Paris on the nuclear protection of Europe. It is uncertain whether NATO, in its present form, will be suitable for this “epochal break”, or whether new European structures will be needed. Perhaps the objective is a Europeanised NATO, a centre of gravity in the Old Continent that can contain or compensate for American oscillations and the unpredictable behaviour of its bull...

Internationalism No. 73, March 2025 Page 4 “By punishing his longtime allies with tariffs, Donald Trump is encouraging other nations to form trading blocs and networks that exclude the United States”. Whilst the New York Times treats the issue polemically, it constitutes an important strand of reflection in European and Asian assessments. The duties are a “declaration of economic war”, according to Le Monde. A rapid, temporary negotiating truce followed, with tariffs suspended in exchange for tactical concessions from Canada and Mexico. Whilst the “bluff” may have yielded some transitory results, a “permanent instability” is settling at the heart of American affairs. Unpredictability as a weapon is the strategy with which the new presidency intends to tackle, and perhaps even temporarily reverse, American decline. This, though, comes at the cost of compromising the United States” credibility as the guarantor of the old order and the network of alliances which...

From the series News from the Silk Road According to The Washington Post , through the federal budget the White House has opened negotiations with the Senate that include long-term competition with China. The figures — $6 trillion, including infrastructure and family welfare plans — will vary in the negotiations, and will be centred on three directives. One demand is common to various proposals of expenditure: they must have a positive impact on the American productivity vis-à-vis China on the open fronts of industrial, energy and technological restructuring, or on the efficiency of welfare systems. In the case of welfare, the competition is also vis-à-vis Europe. Another calculation, attributed to Biden’s administration and the Democrats, is the enlargement of the electoral coalition in view of the next mid-term elections. Finally, there is a need to direct military expenditure, within the framework of a greater increase in the other items of discretionary expenditure, not absorb...