
Moscow hopes Trump's ‘reasonable' position will influence EU
Speaking during a press conference in Moscow following talks with his Mozambican counterpart, Maria Manuela Lucas, on Tuesday, Russia's top diplomat expressed hopes the EU will, at some point, show a willingness to engage in meaningful dialogue.
'I really hope that the reasonable approach that the Trump administration showed in this situation after it replaced the Biden administration, which spoke in unison with the unhinged Europeans, that this reasonable approach, which includes a willingness to dialogue and a willingness to listen and hear, will not go unnoticed by the Europeans, despite all the current discussions about the need to arm the Kiev regime again and again and again at the expense of… European taxpayers,' Lavrov stated.
While the US president had repeatedly promised to end the hostilities between Moscow and Kiev, he admitted last month, however, that the task had proven to be 'more difficult than people would have any idea.' Thus far, the direct negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, kick-started by the US administration, have failed to yield any tangible result, focusing primarily on humanitarian issues, including prisoner swaps and the return of the bodies of fallen soldiers.
Trump has spoken with Russian President Vladimir Putin multiple times in recent months. He recently criticized the Russian leader for supposedly resisting a settlement and threatened to impose sanctions on Russia and its trade partners unless the Ukraine conflict is ended by autumn.
In response, the Kremlin stated it had a calm view of the criticism and expressed its intention to continue the dialogue with Washington. Presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov urged the US administration to put pressure on Kiev instead, suggesting that it 'appears that the Ukrainian side takes all statements of support as signals to continue war, not as signals for peace.'
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After months of negotiations, seven trips to Washington and over 100 hours of empty talk by its touchingly useless trade commissioner Maros Sefcovic alone, the EU has brought home not a bad deal but pure, total defeat, as if it had been busy distilling the very essence of being on the losing side at Cannae, Waterloo, and Stalingrad: While Trump could enumerate a substantial list of big, expensive concessions made by the Europeans, von der Leyen got nothing, strictly nothing. This is not a 'deal' at all. It is unconditional surrender. Without a preceding war. In essence, the US will now levy 'baseline' tariffs of 15% on most of its massive imports from the EU, including on cars. But there are exceptions! Already punitive American tariffs of 50% on steel and aluminum will remain in place. In return, for the US, selling in the giant if decaying EU market will be, in essence, free, at an average tariff rate of zero or, at best, below 1%. And to show its appreciation of such a fine, evenhanded 'deal,' the EU sweetened it by throwing in some extras as if there is no tomorrow. Like at one of those late-night TV direct sales shows. Only that the EU slogan is not 'order immediately and…' but 'ruin us right now and get an extra $1.35 trillion just to make us even poorer and you even richer!' That $1.35 trillion consists of two promises of direct EU tributes (yes, that is the correct, real term) to Washington: an additional – as Trump stressed – $600 billion which EU companies, surely dizzy with gratitude, will invest in the US; and $750 billion of especially dirty and expensive American LNG (liquefied natural gas) which they will buy to feed into whatever will remain of European industry. Meanwhile, Trump is making concessions – again – to China. China, of course, being the sovereign country and economic powerhouse that did what the EU completely failed to do: fight back against the Washington bullies. And now imagine what the EU could have achieved if it had worked with China to check US aggression. Instead, the recent EU-China summit in Beijing has shown that the EU is still not ready to abandon its arrogant stance of hectoring and threatening China, in particular in a futile attempt to drive a wedge between Beijing and Moscow. The other thing the summit has made clear is that China will not budge. And why would it? The absurdity of all of the above is staggeringly obvious, even if there already are quarrels about the details. Because between Team Trump and Team von der Leyen, two card-carrying egomaniacs and narcissists, there was of course no one to take care of those. Regal von der Leyen – with aristocratic nonchalance – besides, never cared to check if she even has a right or the practical means to promise away $1.35 trillion that, actually, only specific companies could make available. Hint: she does not. But what does it all mean? Here are three take-away points: First, we must, for once, agree with American regime change and war addicts, such as Anne Applebaum and Tim Snyder: European appeasement is a real thing. But not of Russia, which has never been appeased but provoked, needlessly fought, and, mostly, systematically denied even a fair hearing. No, what the Europeans appease is, obviously, the US, their ruthless and utterly contemptuous hegemon and worst enemy, from letting America and its cut-outs blow up Nord Stream to the Turnberry Fiasco. Look at the feeble official attempts to sell this exploitation and devastation pact with Washington to the European public: German Chancellor Friedrich Merz – only recently the undeserving recipient of exorbitant praise at home simply for not having been humiliated too crassly at the Trump White House – has officially thanked the EU negotiators, especially Sefcovic and von der Leyen, and praised the 'deal' for averting an even worse outcome and providing 'stability.' Likewise, von der Leyen has praised herself for giving us 'certainty in uncertain times.' What a channeling of Neville Chamberlain, the interwar British premier who gave appeasement its bad name by caving in to Hitler! Dear Tim Snyder: We know, for you it's always 1938 somewhere. Here you have a full re-enactment: 'Certainty for our time!' von der Leyen virtually shouted raising not an umbrella but her thumb, while still at the American leader's golf club Berghof in Scotland. Second, there goes the new German 'Fuhrungsmacht' (meaning leadership, and with extra oomph). And we hardly ever knew it. Because – pay attention now, Berlin – here's the catch: One cannot claim leadership in Europe and initiate full self-destruct mode just to please the US at the same time. I know, this is complicated. But people just don't like being led by those who sell them out. In this regard, it is, of course, important that it will be two Germans, von der Leyen and Merz, who will be most associated with the Turnberry Fiasco. They have made sure that Germany does not stand for leadership but for submission to the point of self-harm. The rhetoric of collaboration – 'We are betraying your interests only to avoid even worse things, please be grateful!' – will either not work at all or not for long. In the end, it's the De Gaulles who win, not the Petains. Third, there is a difference between a trade war and economic warfare. Merz may claim that a trade war with the US has been avoided. In reality, we will never know, of course: If the EU had stood its ground – and it had the means and even some plans to do so – there might not even have been a trade war or it might have ended quickly, and with a better outcome for the EU. China, again, is the proof. But one thing is certain: there is ongoing economic warfare, namely by the US against its own European vassals. They have submitted to their own impoverishment and ongoing deindustrialization, but the American laying waste of their economies has not stopped but accelerated again. Europe is under massive economic attack – and it is not fighting back. In an ideal world, the Europeans would now finally see sense: For starters, they would rebel against the EU Commission and its power grab, get rid of Ursula von der Leyen and her team, and disavow their 'deal.' Then they would stop taking over America's proxy war against Russia, cut their ties with the corrupt Kiev regime, and normalize their relationship with Russia – and with China, too. In other words, they would find partners to help them emancipate themselves from an American overlord that is not merely dominating but devastating its 'allies.' None of the above, however, will happen. Witness the sorry spectacle of the last, recent attempt to chase von der Leyen from office. Real change to save Europe from the EU will require tectonic shifts in the continent's politics. Indeed, the EU is probably hopeless and will have to be abandoned first. Europe's current 'elites,' who behave as if they serve the US and not their fellow Europeans, will have to lose power. But how? In late 1916, a Russian politician gave a famous speech. Enumerating the then tsarist government's failures, he kept asking the same simple question: 'Is this stupidity or treason?' Less than half a year after that speech, Russia's Ancien Regime fell. Europeans must wake up at long last and ask the same question about their leaders.