The summit between the United States and the European Union in Washington was resolved with a series of declarations of good intentions that masked the divergences between both blocs. Initially, it was planned that the presidents of the EU and the European Council, Charles Michel, would meet with the president of the United States, Joe Biden, to discuss trade issues related to steel, aluminum and the so-called ‘critical minerals’, in which that negotiations are stuck.
But the Hamas attacks of October 7 burst onto the agenda, and the debate moved to the Middle East. The result was that the Europeans could only offer good words to Biden, largely because, as the EU itself recognizes, beyond general principles, such as the condemnation of terrorism and the defense of the concept of ‘two states’ – one Israeli, another Palestinian -, European countries lack a common position.
So the meeting was limited to grandiloquent words, with Von der Layen thanking Biden for his visit to Israel, Michel proclaiming that “we are more than great allies; we are friends”, and Biden celebrating “the commitment” of his Government “in the revitalization of links with Europe”. Meanwhile, the tariffs imposed by Trump on steel and aluminum remain in force, the plan by Brussels and Washington to replace them remains without progress, and the coordination between the two shores of the Atlantic to ensure the supply of ‘critical minerals’ essential in the development of new technologies are encountering one obstacle after another.
Nothing made the lack of European unity more evident than the news of the day in Washington, at least in relation to Israel and Ukraine: the request by the Biden Government for 106.6 billion dollars (100.6 billion euros) to Congress as aid to Ukraine, Israel, and a series of Pacific countries neighboring China, among which it does not expressly mention Taiwan – although it is assumed that it would be one of the recipients of the aid – and it does so, indirectly, with Australia.
Of that amount, $61.4 billion will be in military aid to Ukraine and $14.3 billion to Israel. Another 9.5 billion dollars in humanitarian assistance to Ukraine and, above all, to Gaza, while 4 billion more will go to the Pacific countries to confront China and another 3,500 for the modernization of US state shipyards that manufacture nuclear submarines. Finally, 14 billion will go to the fight against illegal immigration.
The aid plan was expected since yesterday, and is the result of Biden’s strategy of combining aid to Israel, which has the support of the entire American political spectrum, with that of Ukraine, which the Trumpist wing opposes. and pro-Russian of the Republican Party. Everything indicates that the package would be supported without problems, if it were not for the fact that the Republicans in the House of Representatives – where that party has the majority – are in full civil war, to the point of having paralyzed that legislative body for almost three weeks. The Republican representatives do not agree on who should be the president of the House and, as long as this continues, that body does not function, which indicates that the Legislative Branch is paralyzed and, therefore, no law can be approved. no type.
The legislative paralysis is shocking, thus, with Biden’s words last night, when he said that the United States “is the lighthouse of the world,” a phrase that seems like an updated version of “the city on top of a mountain,” based in the Sermon on the Mount of the New Testament that has always been widely used by American Puritans, although the first president to use it, John F. Kennedy, was Catholic.