Faced with a more competitive environment, the United States has sought to secure its partners. This approach has seemed brutal, particularly in trade negotiations since Donald Trump’s return to the White House.

This strategy has not been the Chinese’s. For a long time, Beijing’s leaders have chosen to make their partners dependent. The world map clearly shows that China has gradually become the leading trading partner for a majority of countries, whereas this was previously the status of the United States or the European Union. The objective is to have outlets capable of selling domestic production. The choice of the Belt and Road Initiative, known as the Silk Roads, stems from the same idea: to secure routes that will allow trade to benefit the Middle Kingdom.

This idea of ​​dependence has been long-standing and a large number of countries are indebted to it because they have become dependent.

Europe follows other rules. In his speech in Rimini, Mario Draghi mentioned that Europe was built on 450 million consumers, but that this was not enough to make it a geopolitical power. We are now seeing the limits of this exercise. Europe is subject to two types of constraints.

The first is its autonomy for growth. It must invest to fuel its own capacity to generate high revenues and remain in the race for innovation. From this perspective, the ECB appears somewhat out of step, since it places the central bank within the previous framework, the one driven by openness to the world.

The second is the rest of the world’s lack of dependence on European choices. What I’m talking about here is excessive, but Europe has not built a framework, beyond a enlarged Europe, in which other countries would be dependent. The Americans did it in their own way, the Chinese as well, the Europeans have not taken this step. They are in an uncomfortable position since they pay a price of 600 billion to Washington and are the receptacle of China’s export surpluses.

The emerging framework is that of a hierarchy defined by the United States and China. Each will define the rules it wishes to enforce within its own distribution of countries. Europe is not there and must choose either one of the two, or not to choose, in order to reduce this potential dependence.

The mode of great openness that prevailed during the rise of globalization is changing course. Each of the United States and China defines its allies, either economically or politically, through existing institutions that are criticized, in the case of the United States, or through institutions yet to be defined, as is the case with China. Europe is not playing this game. Its influence on the world is affected.

To be continued…