Recently, at the foreign ministry's regular press conference, spokesman Zhao Lijian once again expressed his position on the Ukrainian crisis in the face of reporters' questions, and he bluntly said that the United States, as the initiator of the Ukrainian crisis, has now become the biggest winner in watching the fire from the other side of the shore to reap the profits, which is worthy of the world's consideration and vigilance.
▲The United States has a steady stream of aid to The Ukrainian army
It is true that since the comprehensive escalation of the Ukrainian crisis, the United States has increased its arms exports on the one hand, and on the other hand, it has also taken the opportunity of sanctions against Russia to provide high-priced natural gas to Europe, which has really made a lot of money, but this interest has also raised new questions.
Sacrifice small profits and get big profits
Statistics show that by the end of August, European countries had allocated at least $279 billion in aid funds to alleviate the soaring energy prices and alleviate the energy crisis, which is a completely senseless additional cost. At the same time, according to the data previously given by the relevant international agencies, due to the high oil prices, the energy crisis will bring additional expenditure equivalent to 1.8% of GDP to consumers in the euro area, which is expected to exceed 230 billion euros by the end of this year.
In terms of the above two sets of data alone, no matter which group is a big additional cost, but it has to be said that this is likely to be a small profit compared to the benefits obtained by the EU from the United States. According to the statistics released by the US Economic Analysis Bureau in February this year, the total foreign trade of the United States in 2021 is 4614.6 billion US dollars, of which the total foreign trade of the United States and the European Union is 762.9 billion US dollars, accounting for 16.5% of the US foreign trade, accounting for an unusually high proportion, and the US trade deficit with the EU has reached 219.6 billion US dollars, which shows that EU countries have not made less money in the United States.
▲ Bretton Woods system built the dollar hegemony
Since the end of World War II, under the step-by-step manipulation of the United States, it has already built global trade barriers and financial barriers with European countries, and the existence of such barriers protects the interests of the United States while also ensuring that the interests of European countries are as free from external infringement as much as possible. Once The contradiction between Europe and the United States intensifies over the Russian issue, the resulting losses will be much higher than the additional energy expenditure. In short, although Europe is constantly being pit by the United States, the good guys can still eat soup, and conversely, they may not even be able to drink this soup. In view of this, European countries can only insist on surrounding the United States.
Disunity within Europe
In essence, through the Ukraine crisis, the United States earned a high energy price difference, European countries are clear, but only within the EU, because of lack of unity, it is difficult to obtain negotiating capital with the United States, and the United States can easily disintegrate the EU by means of control of some of these countries, resulting in the EU, although it looks like a whole, but in essence it is still pregnant with a ghost on major issues, and it is impossible to reach an agreement.
Sialdo gave a speech
Taking the sanctions against Russia, although the EU has passed several rounds of sanctions against Russia, this does not mean that all EU countries agree, at the end of August, Hungarian Foreign Minister Siardo once again said in a speech at a forum that Hungary opposes energy sanctions against Russia, and he did not obscurely say that there are many countries within the EU that oppose sanctions against Russia. These countries are likely to include the Czech Republic, Greece, and, in the early days, even Austria and even Germany.
However, these opposition voices are extremely weak and even a little pale in the face of the remaining twenty or so EU countries, and as for the reasons for this disunity, it is not difficult to understand, just two words - interests. First of all, not all EU countries are energy dependent on Russia, such as France, although France relies entirely on imports of natural gas, but imports from Russia account for only about 17% of all imports, which is much less dependent than Germany. The lower dependence will naturally have less negative impacts on sanctions than in other countries.
▲ European natural gas source
The EU currently has 27 member states, but these 27 countries have 27 kinds of interest demands, it is difficult to reach a complete agreement of interests, which provides a full opportunity for the United States to intervene, as long as the United States will easily manipulate the EU into a tool in line with its own interests, since it is a tool, then why sacrifice interests?
In addition, military dependence on the United States, different values, the intensification of global polarization, etc., are also objective factors that cannot be ignored, even if the self-interest of European countries is seized by the United States, but can only insist on surrounding the United States.