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Ursula von der Leyen
Hard Numbers: Aid corridor, Starving in Sudan, Iran the executioner, Uber-vaccinated in Deutschland, Nightmarish sea lizard
230: The government of Cyprus, just 230 miles from Gaza, has proposed the establishment of a one-way maritime corridor to provide uninterrupted aid to Palestinian civilians trapped there. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen will travel to the island nation later this week to discuss the plan.
25 million: The World Food Program warns that war in Sudan now threatens the food security of 25 million people in Sudan, South Sudan, and Chad, making it the world’s largest hunger crisis.
834: A new report from the Norway-based Iran Human Rights organization says Iran executed at least 834 people in 2023, the highest total in two decades and a 435 surge from the previous year. Iranian authorities have faced large recent protests over its repressive social policies.
217: According to the Lancet, a medical journal, a 62-year-old German man who voluntarily received 217 coronavirus jabs over 29 months has shown “no signs” of COVID-19 and has not suffered vaccine-related side effects. #SeemsExcessive
26: Scientists have discovered fossils belonging to a "nightmarish" 26-foot-long sea lizard with “dagger-like” teeth that stalked the world’s oceans 66 million years ago. We’re curious whether the inevitable Hollywood blockbuster will be a horror film or an animated musical.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen delivers a speech at BusinessEurope conference in Brussels, Belgium March 5, 2020.
Hard Numbers: Von der Leyen seeks reelection, Israel GDP plummets, Ukrainian troops captured, Something’s smelly in Cape Town, Moïse’s widow indicted
20: Since the start of the war in Gaza, Israel's GDP has plummeted by nearly 20%. The biggest economic hits came from the government calling 300,000 reservists away from their jobs to Gaza, relocating 120,000 Israelis away from the border, and restricting Palestinian West Bank workers from working in the country.
1,000: Up to 1,000 Ukrainian troops appear to have been captured during Russia’s takeover of the east Ukrainian city of Avdiivka. The loss is a sign of military supplies dwindling in the absence of new US funding, damaging morale, and Ukraine’s ability to hold the line.
19,000: After searching for days to locate the source of the “unimaginable stench” that engulfed Cape Town, South African officials finally found the culprit: a ship transporting 19,000 live cattle from Brazil to Iraq. The ship is set to depart soon, but the country is seeing an uptick in livestock bound for the Middle East passing through Cape Town as an alternative to the Red Sea route amid Houthi violence there.
51: Martine Moïse is among 51 people indicted for alleged involvement in the July 2021 assassination of her husband, then-Haitian President Jovenel Moïse. Attorneys for Mrs. Moïse, who was wounded in the attack, denied the charges and questioned the legitimacy of the 122-page indictment, which doesn’t provide evidence of her direct involvement.
FILE PHOTO: Donald Trump dancing during the campaign rally for the Republican primary for the 2024 American presidential election. Manchester (NH), USA, January 20, 2024.
For China, Russia, and Israel, patience is a virtue in 2024
In January, Taiwan elected pro-independence candidate William Lai and, despite warnings, China’s response has been restrained, possibly influenced by Beijing’s belief that the leading US presidential candidate may treat Taiwan like a “discarded chess piece.”
That’s what Chinese Taiwan Affairs Office spokesperson Chen Binhua said would happen if Donald Trump won the US election in November after the former president refused to say whether he would defend Taiwan. His comments shook US ally Japan strongly enough that senior Kishida administration officials are reportedly contacting Trump’s camp to warn against cutting any kind of deal with China.
The view from China: The prospect of a friendlier – or at least more transactional – US administration might be good news for cross-strait relations in the short term. There's no point in rocking the boat in a way that might hurt either Trump’s prospects or what trust Beijing has built with the Biden administration over the last year (Joe Biden, after all, could win too).
Beijing isn’t alone in recognizing that a little patience could pay big dividends after November. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal on Sunday, Israeli far-right leader Itamar Ben-Gvir said Israel would have carte blanche under Trump 2.0.
“Instead of giving us his full backing, Biden is busy with humanitarian aid and fuel, which goes to Hamas,” he said. “If Trump [were] in power, the US conduct would be completely different.”
The view from the Kremlin is just as rosy. Former US Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul has been arguing for months that Vladimir Putin is waiting for Trump to be re-elected to sue for peace in Ukraine because of how destabilizing another dose of Trump will be to NATO. Former US Ambassador to NATO Ivo Daaldermade a similar argument last week. And Trump did tell European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, “By the way, NATO is dead, and we will leave, we will quit NATO” in 2020.
GZERO also has its eye on North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. He and Trump left it in a bad place after their whirlwind romance in 2018 … but who knows what another love letter might spark?
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.
Hard Numbers: Lampedusa landings soar, Aussies rally for indigenous rights, Vatican makes Holocaust admission, Brand accused of rape
8,000: European Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen traveled to the island of Lampedusa, which lies halfway between Sicily and Tunisia, after Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni called for the EU’s assistance with a wave of small boat arrivals there. Over 8,000 migrants have landed on Lampedusa since Friday. For more on how the immigration debate is dividing European governments, see our explainer here.
20,000: In Brisbane, Australia, 20,000 protestors rallied ahead of an Oct.14 referendum on Indigenous rights. They support measures that would enshrine Indigenous groups in the country’s constitution and set up an advisory body to advance their issues.
1942: A never-before seen letter has revealed that Pope Pius XII knew of the horrors of the Holocaust in 1942, far earlier than previously believed. The letter was released by the Vatican ahead of a major conference on Pius and the Holocaust next month at the Pontifical Gregorian, sponsored by Catholic and Jewish organizations.
6: Ukraine is stepping up its drone attacks. The Russian Defense Ministry says its forces stopped six Ukrainian unmanned craft that were attacking Russian targets in Crimea from different directions on Sunday. On the same day, two Ukrainian drones were shot down near Moscow.
4: Four women have accused British comedian and actor Russell Brand of sexual assaults, including rape, committed between 2006 and 2013. Brand, who has amassed millions of followers by styling himself as an anti-establishment truth teller and wellness guru, has denied all charges, saying they are "a litany of extremely egregious and aggressive attacks as well as some pretty stupid stuff."
EU Commision chief Ursula von der Leyen
Europe’s annual checkup
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen takes the mic on Wednesday for her annual state of the union address.
She’ll look to tout successes in reducing Europe’s dependence on Russian gas, supporting Ukraine, advancing Europe’s transition to clean energy, and boosting semiconductor production on the continent.
But not all is well in the Union. Inflation is stubbornly high, and the economy is sputtering as Germany, the largest member, slips into recession. Moreover, big questions about EU enlargement loom as the Union considers whether to formally invite Ukraine to begin the process of joining.
Is this a campaign speech? Many will hear it that way. The next European Parliament elections will be held in June 2024, and while von der Leyen hasn’t yet thrown her hat in the ring officially, she is widely thought to be considering it.Macron’s Taiwan remarks are a big win for China
Emmanuel Macron is in the news again, and this time it’s not because he’s trying to get French people to work longer.
France’s president set off a firestorm last week after he said Europe should stay out of any conflict between the United States and China over Taiwan and called for Europe to lessen its dependence on the US … at the same time as he was in Beijing trying to increase Europe's dependence on China.
Much like German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s trip to China a few months ago, the purpose of Macron’s three-day visit was two-fold: (1) to urge Chinese President Xi Jinping to help end the war in Ukraine and (2) to deepen commercial ties between Europe and China. Business as usual for a European leader these days.
Macron’s delegation included Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, as well as some 50 business leaders. Xi rolled out the red carpet for the French leader (not so for von der Leyen), complete with a state banquet, a military parade, and a mob of cheering students.
Everything was going swimmingly … until Macron opened his mouth.
“We don’t want to get involved in a bloc vs. bloc logic,” he stated to reporters from Les Echos and Politico aboard a flight between Beijing and Guangzhou. Rather than become a “vassal” of the US, he said, Europe should aim to become a “third superpower” independent of both Beijing and Washington, warning Europeans against getting “caught up in crises that are not ours” such as Taiwan.
Much like his repeated attempts to engage Vladimir Putin riled many in the US and Ukraine, these comments prompted sharp criticism on both sides of the Atlantic.
For starters, openly complaining about excessive dependence on the US and claiming cross-strait stability isn’t a core European interest when Europe relies so heavily on America to address crises like Ukraine, which concerns Europe much more than the US, is hypocritical. As India’s foreign minister said last year: "Europe has to grow out of the mindset that Europe’s problems are the world’s problems but the world’s problems are not Europe’s problems."
To be blunt, if it weren’t for US leadership, intelligence, and weapons, the Russians would be sipping tea in Lviv. Should Europe be powerful enough to stand up to Russia and compete with China on its own? Absolutely. But the “strategic autonomy” Macron has strived for since 2017 can’t simply be talked into existence. It must be earned in the physical world through costly policy changes Europe doesn’t seem able or willing to push through.
Moreover, saying that Europeans should avoid falling in with “the US agenda and a Chinese overreaction” on Taiwan presumes the US will be the aggressor while China will simply be reacting. In reality, a conflict over Taiwan would more likely be precipitated by Beijing’s more aggressive actions to change the island’s status quo by force, against the wishes of the Taiwanese people (who don’t seem to possess any agency in Macron’s worldview).
I can’t imagine any other G7 leader acting the way Macron did, especially in today’s geopolitical environment. The timing couldn’t have been worse, happening just as Beijing was launching military exercises off Taiwan in response to President Tsai Ing-wen’s meeting with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in California just days earlier.
And for what? He handed Xi a PR win, failed to extract any concessions or promises on Ukraine, undermined intra-European and trans-Atlantic unity on China, gave fodder to American isolationists like Donald Trump and Sen. Josh Hawley, and weakened Western deterrence of Chinese aggression against Taiwan. But at least we're not talking about his pension reform.
All this is not to say France, an important NATO ally, nuclear power, and permanent UN Security Council member, doesn’t have every right – and plenty of reasons – to express concerns about US leadership. The Biden administration’s handling of the AUKUS submarine snub was an embarrassment and did lasting damage to the bilateral relationship. Trump’s “America First” treatment of US allies no doubt scarred the Elysée Palace, too, sowing the initial seeds of mistrust and prompting Macron to seek out alternatives to a “brain dead” NATO.
But you’d think that Washington’s muscular response to the Russian invasion, which by Macron’s own admission was an “electroshock” for the trans-Atlantic alliance, would have assuaged his fears. Think again. Partly, that’s a logical response to the prospect of another Trump presidency. But in part it’s structural, born of a deep-seated ambivalence toward the US and ambition to be a geopolitical “balancing power” that has characterized French foreign policy since Charles de Gaulle. Plus ça change …
The point is that France should air its grievances – however legitimate – with the United States and fellow allies. Even if he said nothing new, Macron voicing them publicly while in China, given the asymmetry of the US-France relationship, the intensifying strategic competition between Washington and Beijing, and America’s outsized role in Ukraine’s defense, reflects poor judgment.
Whether it leads to a broader rift in the trans-Atlantic alliance is an open question, but two things are clear from this episode.
First, while there is near-total alignment between the US and its allies on the need to decouple economically from Russia, the same cannot be said about decoupling from China. As Beijing has long suspected, economic diplomacy can be a pretty effective way to buy off at least some of Washington’s friends.
Second, China is decisively leaning into the role of global peacemaker, and it is finding lots of takers. Coming on the back of the proposed 12-point framework for peace in Ukraine and the Beijing-brokered détente between the hitherto irreconcilable Iran and Saudi Arabia, the momentum of its diplomatic push is undeniable.
Xi’s got to be feeling pretty good about himself these days.
Backlash from Macron's China visit
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: Happy Monday. It's Ian Bremmer here and a Quick Take to kick off our week. And I want to talk a little bit about French President Emmanuel Macron, who is in the news again this week and not for demonstrations at home. Not for trying to change the pension age from 62 to 64, I mean that and the backlash has been dominating international coverage of the French president for weeks now. But this time around, it's what he's saying on the international stage.
Specifically, Macron has just completed a trip to China with Ursula von der Leyen and brought a whole bunch of business leaders with him. Nothing shocking about that. Olaf Scholz did the same a few months ago when he went to Beijing. Was talking about Xi Jinping playing more of a role on the Russia, Ukraine crisis. There, that is a bit different than what we've seen from other leaders. It was in the G-20 in Bali when Macron went off-piste and basically said, "Hey, we'd love to have Xi Jinping engaged directly in leading diplomacy, responding to the Russian invasion." The Americans were skeptical, a number of other Western leaders a little concerned that Macron had made those statements without talking to them about it but didn't really go anywhere.
This time around, it's both a call for Europe to be less dependent on the United States, at the same time that France is in Beijing trying to increase their dependence on China, saying that the EU should not be involved in conflicts where it is not a direct party and mentioning Taiwan specifically. While of course the United States is leading military support on Ukraine, much more important to the Europeans than it is to the US. And also pushing for much more bilateral China, French engagement of Russia, Ukraine, which isn't going anywhere, at least not right now.
The response to all of that has been a level of mistrust. I mean frankly this was, until Macron started talking about the trip, was going very well. He was treated extremely well by the Chinese Government. He was welcomed. It was very much a red carpet treatment. He had lots of Chinese students that were cheering for him, displaying a lot of enthusiasm. Some of which was ginned up by the Chinese Government, but some of which might well have just been spontaneous. And the coverage, the press coverage, the social media coverage was very positive.
Macron then decided that he was going to push a lot of criticism of the United States, and of course that, especially in China itself, given the nature of the US, China relationship was not responded well to at all. It is probably the worst bilateral relationship in the G-7. It's the one leader that Biden doesn't particularly trust. It is quite probably mutual. There's lots of reasons for it. I mean in part, of course, the French Government has always had a more independent view of its own leadership role, and concerns about US exceptionalism, US hypocrisy, and France wanting an out sized role given their permanent seat, for example, at the Security Council, as well as given their historical imperial roles internationally.
Also, at the beginning of the Biden administration, the AUKUS debacle where the French were displaced by the US and the UK for multi-billion-dollar submarine deals, and the French found out about it on CNN, and you may remember the French withdrew their ambassador at that point. This is the kind of flap that just really shouldn't have happened, and in part because France wasn't really trusted and because Kurt Campbell, who was sort of the Asia czar in the White House, in the National Security Council, didn't see fit to talk to the French about it, basically thought that they were irrelevant to the Asian theater. And Anthony Blinken, the secretary of state, who speaks French fluently and has a quite good relationship with his French interlocutors, wasn't really driving Asia policy and didn't assert himself as much as he probably should have. So an embarrassment for the US, France relationship. Biden apologized about it. Hoping that all of this was fixed, but not really.
Now, the fact that French President Macron had said that NATO was brain dead back before the Russian invasion in his talk of strategic autonomy, well, that of course is something that does stick in everyone's popular consciousness. But after the Russian invasion, of course NATO became much more relevant. And indeed, Macron said it was like an electroshock for NATO at the time. And so there was a hope that that level of coordination, the defense coordination, the economic coordination, remember the EU unanimously voted to allow Ukraine membership process, unanimously has supported 10 rounds of sanctions, soon to be 11, France playing a leadership role just like everyone else. So there really was a hope that Macron's personal aspirations and ambitions for broader leadership, as well as his irritation and peak at the United States was something that had been largely assuaged. What we're seeing right now is that really is not the case and is not the case in particular as US, China relations are getting a lot worse.
One other point that I would raise here is the fact that while there is and remains very strong alignment between the United States and pretty much all of its allies on Russia, on a full decoupling of Russia economically, and strong punishment of Russia on the international stage, not something that Global South agrees with at all. That when it comes to China, the United States increasingly sees China as a hostile national security threat that should extend to significant strategic economic interactions. On critical minerals for example, on semiconductors, for example, other places. That is not met with anywhere near the same level of agreement among US allies. Almost all US allies want strong security relations with the US, but also want strong economic relations with China. Especially as China's about to become the largest economy in the world. And in that regard, the Germans, the French, and others are closer to the US private sector orientation towards China, most of them, than they are to the US Government, Democrats or Republicans.
But despite that tension, it hasn't been put on public display the way we've seen from Macron over the last 48 hours. That's unfortunate and will surely lead to backlash. Whether it leads to a broader rift in the transatlantic relationship is an open question. Let's see how the Germans, how the Italians in particular respond to Macron on this issue.
That's it for me, I'll talk to you all real soon.
U.S. President Joe Biden speaks with Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as they meet during the Ninth Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles, California, U.S., June 9, 2022.
US green subsidies pushback to dominate Biden's Canada trip
As Ottawa prepares for a two-day visit by President Joe Biden starting Thursday, Canadians have been speculating about whether he will do something to stop the northward flow of border crossings by undocumented migrants at Roxham Road, Quebec.
That problem is grabbing headlines, but it is nothing next to the border challenges the Americans face, and the Canadians likely have more important requests for Biden. Behind the scenes, the government is focused on getting Americans to help mitigate the impact of the Inflation Reduction Act, the largest climate spending package in US history, which could lead to the loss of capital and jobs from Canada.
The $350 billion IRA stimulus package is a challenge to both Canada and Europe, with subsidies and open-ended tax credits that offer huge savings to clean-technology companies that shift their operations to the United States. It is expected to be a game-changer for emission reductions, but also a threat to allied countries who can’t match the Americans’ spending power.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen was in Washington this month to try to come to terms with the Americans over the nature of the threat, and the EU appears poised to match American incentives. That will come too late to save a Volkswagen battery plant that had been planned for Eastern Europe.
Not coincidentally, the German auto giant just announced plans to build a battery plant in St. Thomas, Ontario, where it can benefit from American subsidies because the auto industry is covered by the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement. That looks like a big win for Canada, but … other sectors do not enjoy the same protection, which means that companies – Canadian and foreign firms in Canada in the manufacturing, green energy, and petroleum sectors – may be tempted to move south of the border to take advantage of generous tax credits.
Canada can’t afford to woo these businesses in the same way, so it needs to match US subsidies in key sectors while also asking the Americans, very politely, to play nice.
“The IRA is the biggest piece of industrial policy coming out of the United States for a very long time, and everybody else is now adjusting to that, and [Canadians] are distinctly exposed,” says Graeme Thompson, a Eurasia Group senior analyst. “All gears are firing in Ottawa to manage the challenge that poses to competitiveness so that the US doesn't just suck up all of the investments that we'd otherwise be after.”
That task is front of mind for Canadian Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland, who will present her third budget four days after Biden leaves. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government likely sees the two events as a one-two punch, an opportunity to wrest control of the headlines for a few days.
Biden’s visit gives Trudeau an opportunity for positive messaging. For Gerald Butts, vice chairman of Eurasia Group and former principal secretary to Trudeau, the government likely hopes to change the channel from the China election interference story, which has dominated the news in Canada for weeks.
“They've clearly got a bunch of stuff lined up where they want to make some announcements there and then run into the budget,” he says. “I think what they're hoping to do, obviously, is get control back of the communications agenda from this crazy China stuff.”
So it’s clear what Biden can do to help Canada. But what can Canada do for him?
Freeland has previously promoted US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s notion of “friendshoring,” building supply chains in allied economies. Her exact plans remain unknown, but Canada can offer the Americans access to critical minerals vital to green energy — like lithium and copper — and take steps to streamline approval for mining projects, although Indigenous land rights may make it impossible to go as quickly as industry would like.
Biden is also seeking more help in Ukraine and Haiti. The US wants Ottawa to play a lead role in planning for Ukraine’s reconstruction, which is reasonable. But nobody thinks Canada will do what Biden wants and put peacekeepers on the ground in Haiti, where gangs have turned the national capital into a hellscape. On the other hand, a lack of action will likely lead to even more desperate migrants heading north – a political problem for both governments, which brings us full circle to migration.
Trudeau wants the US to renegotiate the terms of the Safe Third Country Agreement, which requires that asylum-seekers who cross select parts of the US-Canada 5,525-mile border be sent back to the country where they first entered. Trouble is, this encourages migrants to enter at irregular crossings, such as Roxham Road, and once they’re in Canada, they can legally make asylum claims. The Americans have been noncommittal, and they point to uncontrolled irregular crossings in the other direction: Mexicans who can fly into Canada without a visa and then make a short river crossing to the United States.
From the US perspective, Canada is not doing its part, says Christopher Sands, director of the Wilson Center’s Canada Institute.
“We have problems on both our borders,” he says. “You think your border's better, but we both have illegal crossers and we are just as mad about all of them. You're not any better than the Mexicans. We should get better co-operation from you. It's been one of those debates.”
Biden isn’t likely to renegotiate the STCA unless Canada agrees to do more to control the traffic going the other way, and maybe agrees to take more migrants from Central America.
“I think it's gonna be very tough for the president to do much when he's in Canada,” Sands says.
On the other hand, Trudeau and Biden are progressive political allies, and both are struggling with lackluster approval ratings, so they may want to make some deals and show progress on issues that matter on the ground to voters in both countries.
Fun fact: Biden is the first president to spend a night in Ottawa since George W. Bush came north to thank Canada for its help after 9/11. He’s likely not spending so much time — a precious commodity for the world’s most powerful man — without intending to do something that matters.
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