The United States negotiation has reached a bilateral trade agreement with Mexico a few days ago. It is also expected to reach an agreement with Canada this week to revise the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) on a new basis. At the same time, the United States is still accelerating bilateral trade negotiations with the European Union. German ambassador to the United States Emily Haber said recently in a working group convened for the first time after Trump-Juncker’s meeting last week that the U.S. officials “want quick progress on E.U. trade issues.”
The Trump administration’s success in reaching an agreement with Mexico and the rapid push for the U.S-E.U. agreement seems to indicate that the U.S. government is hastening to build its trade alliance with the world’s major economies outside China. If the United States has reached a similar bilateral retention agreement with Japan, then a trade "alliance" with great influence and representativeness will emerge, which will undoubtedly be very unfavorable for China; the United States will be free after that to target China.
The question is that can the United States, the European Union, Japan, Mexico and other countries successfully establish new trade alliances?
Anbound’s research team insists on its past view that the competition between the United States and the European Union in the economy is the main axis of the world today, and the contradiction between the United States and Europe cannot be resolved that easily. The trade scale, industrial structure, scientific and technological level, consumption times and comprehensive economic strength, the E.U. is far more competitive with the United States than China. Therefore, the United States will regard China as the largest "strategic opponent" in the political and ideological fields, but in the economic field, China lags behind the E.U.
We can see from many aspects that the contradictions and rift between the E.U. and the United States are deepening. According to CNN's August 27 report, French President Emmanuel Macron told the French ambassadors in Paris that Europe can no longer entrust its security to the United States alone. "It is up to us today to take our responsibilities and guarantee our own security, and thus have European sovereignty," Macron said. Since the election in 2016, the U.S. President Donald Trump has gradually alienated the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO); Europe’s consensus on peace and security after World War II has been challenged. CNN reports that Macron said he wanted to see a complete rethinking of how Europe defends itself in the future. "I want us to launch an exhaustive review of our security with all Europe's partners, which includes Russia," he added. Macron's call for greater European military cooperation echoes recent comments by German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas. Writing in the Handelsblatt newspaper, Maas called last week for Europe to "take an equal share of the responsibility" and "form a counterweight" to Washington as Europe-U.S. relations cool, AFP reported.
The widening rift between the European Union and the United States does not only stop at mere thoughts but has begun to manifest itself in practice. For example, senior officials from Germany and France recently said that Europe should be more independent of the United States in economic and financial affairs, and has planned to build a payment system that evades the U.S. sanctions. On August 27, Bloomberg reports that French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said in a meeting with the press association AJEF that France and Germany decided to create an independent European or French-German financing tool that would allow them “to avoid being the collateral victims of the U.S. extra-territorial sanctions”, and he stated that he wants “Europe to be a sovereign continent not a vassal, and that means having totally independent financing instruments that do not today exist”. German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas also stated that the E.U. is working to protect economic ties with Iran and keep payment channels open. Maas reiterated a proposal to make international payments systems like Swift more independent of the U.S. He added that as well as the U.S. sanctions against Iran and action taken against China, Russia and Turkey will also damage European business. Bloomberg reports that the United Kingdom also involved in the discussions of such financial tool.
It is worth noting that while Trump is implementing his America First, this is a signal that the European powers take independence seriously. At present, the United States has a certain monopoly on the global payment system; such a system can be used to impose sanctions on other countries, enterprises and individuals. Once Europe has its own independent payment system, it will weaken the U.S. monopoly in the international financial market. It is expected that the United States will try its best to prevent Europe from building such an independent payment system.
Final Analysis Conclusion：
In the global competition arena, the rift between the United States and the European Union under Trump is widening, and the competition between the two remains the main axis of international competition. The competition between China and the United States is far from being in an important position.
