Macron’s visit to the United States is paying attention to it almost the whole world. Everyone wants to see how Macron will punish the United States and how the United States will make excuses. Before Macron could speak, the United States received Macron with quite high specifications.
December 1, US President Biden officially received the visiting French President Macron at White House . It is understood that this is the first time since Biden entered the White House that he has received visiting foreign leaders in accordance with the specifications of state visits. It can be seen that the United States intends to give Macron a reason to speak out before he asks for guilt: Look at me giving you face like this, do you also want to give the White House some face?
But I think Macron should have no time to consider whether he is face or not, because he said this just one thing, to seek justice for France and the entire Europe, and to allow the White House to re-evaluate the impact and possible consequences of the "Inflation Reduction Act". At the lunch meeting at noon on the first day of the visit, Macron directly fired a fire at the Americans. He told U.S. members of Congress and business leaders that the various subsidies provided by the United States to local companies have had a serious impact on French companies. The inflation reduction bill can indeed solve the problems of the United States, but at the same time it has brought tremendous pressure to France and related industries throughout Europe. Macron stressed that France hopes to be respected by the United States.
The key point is that in addition to selling miserable things, Macron also said something similar to threatening the White House: If it cannot be handled properly, this matter may become the crux of US-European relations, which will lead to the division of the Western camp.
The reason why Macron dared to issue such a warning to the United States is because he deeply understood that what the United States cares most now is not the life or death of Europeans, but how to win in the competition with China. After the Sino-US meeting at the Bali G20 summit sent a certain positive signal to the outside world, leaders of European powers visited or were about to visit China, which brought certain troubles to the United States. Americans know that if Europeans turn to China, the United States will be at a disadvantage. Therefore, from the perspective of the United States, it is important to appease the emotions of European countries.
In other words, Macron's visit to the United States this time was to play the "Chinese card". Only China is the weakness of the Americans. At least in the short term, the "Chinese card" style has been tried and tested.
In fact, European countries and American allies including Japan and South Korea expressed strong dissatisfaction with the Biden administration's inflation reduction bill, and even threatened the United States to submit the matter to WTO for resolution. But until today, the United States is unmoved, because they are not qualified to threaten the United States until these countries cannot threaten the United States at all. But Macron is very smart. He knows Biden's weakness and comes up and hits the United States' life.
Biden also decided to make some compromises about Macron's warning. Biden claimed that the United States will not apologize for this bill, but will adjust some of the details as appropriate so that European countries will not be affected too much.
But if we think about it carefully, adjusting the details is equivalent to using the interests of the United States to compromise with the interests of Europeans. Are the Americans willing? Moreover, the "Inflation Reduction Act" has been officially signed. If adjustments are to be made, it will inevitably need to be handed over to the US Congress for re-examination. You know, the current US Congress is no longer the world of the Democratic Party, and it is not something he can change just by wanting to.
It seems that the contradiction between the United States and the West seems to be very large, but it is not irreconcilable. Even such contradictions are harmless. We must never mistakenly think that it will change their ally relationship because of the economic contradictions between them. In fact, historically, the contradiction between the United States and Europe has always been economic. There are contradictions when talking about money. As long as you don’t mention money, Westerners will always be one family, especially at the value level, they will always be one team. Therefore, in the joint statement issued by the United States and France, the two countries emphasized the need to continue to respond to "China's challenges to the international order of ".
In fact, for Europe, they never wanted to develop a relationship with China. They only had pure economic and trade activities. They neither disliked China too much, nor had empathy towards China. It was entirely the United States that manipulated China-EU relations and Sino-US relations. In this regard, I want to say that we should treat European countries rationally. Since everyone has pure trade relations, let’s talk about pure trade issues. As for other things, European countries must first show sincerity, otherwise it will be a waste of emotions.
