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Ukraine pushes to stay top of mind at Davos 2024
Carl Bildt, former prime minister of Sweden, shares his perspective on European politics from the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland.
What are the big geopolitical issues here in Davos?
Well, it's still a lot of Ukraine. As a matter of fact, we had President Zelensky here. There's a large contingent also, even fighters from the front, sharing their experience. But then of course, a deep, deep concern with what's happening in the Middle East. We had both Jake Sullivan and Tony Blinken here yesterday, and there was no disguising the deep worries they have about where developments are heading.
How are things developing with the European support for Ukraine?
I think we are on our way to a solution of that. The Hungarian objection is being diluted somewhat. I think there are good prospects for the Europeans delivering the €50 billion that have been promised for the next few years. There might even be more. We could add the UK money to that. And accordingly, a bright prospect.
Will Macron’s moves regain him popularity in France?
Carl Bildt, former prime minister of Sweden, shares his perspective on European politics.
Will President Macron, with his new government, succeed in relaunching himself in terms of popularity? It remains to be seen, but I think the odds are there. He clearly faces an uphill battle against the more nationalist forces in Le Pen prior to the European Parliament elections in late May, early June. And that is critical for him. His opinion poll standing is fairly low right now. He really needs to do better in European Parliament elections. And I think, yep, he might do it, but it remains to be seen.How is European support for Ukraine coming along?
That was, of course, a problem with the summit in December where Hungary, Viktor Orban, blocked the expected decision to give 50 billion Euros to Ukraine over the next few years. There's now I wouldn't say white smoke as of yet, but white puffs of smoke at least coming out of the discussions and rather hard discussions in Brussels. And I would expect that at the next summit on February 1st there will be an okay, a green light, for the 50 billion Euros for Ukraine. That is very much needed. And now the question is, of course, what will happen with American money with the mess in the US House of Representatives?
Europe's big political stories to watch in 2024
Carl Bildt, former prime minister of Sweden, shares his perspective on European politics.
What are the big political stories in Europe 2024?
Well, obviously the Russian aggression against Ukraine and the possibility of supporting Ukraine in its fight for its independence, freedom of sovereignty, is going to be the dominant story.
But apart from that, the election to the European Parliament happening in early summer, that's going to be enormously important, both because it will show the respective strengths of the different political forces in Europe. I would expect the center-right EPP to remain as the dominant force in the European Parliament, but that remains to be seen. And that is of course the beginning of the process of appointing all of the new personalities that will dominate the European Union in the coming five years. President of the European Council, president of the Commission, high representative for foreign and security affairs, president of the European Parliament, all of the commissioners, all will be decided during the month immediately after the election, based on that particular result.
Then, of course, an election in the United Kingdom, which is highly likely to produce a new government. And then perhaps the possibility, with a new commission and a new government in London, a more constructive relationship across the channel between Brussels and London. And I think that might be highly needed, as the country that I'm at the moment in is also having an election in November, and that might produce an outcome which might be highly problematic from several points of view. And Europe has to be ready
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President Joe Biden Welcomes President Zelensky Of Ukraine To The White House United States President Joe Biden and first lady Dr. Jill Biden welcome President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine to the White House in Washington, DC, Dec. 21, 2022
Zelensky coming to the White House
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will visit President Biden in Washington and meet with Congressional leaders next week. The visit will follow his in-person address to the United Nations in New York, and marks his second trip to D.C.
Will Zelensky’s visit help the impasse on Ukraine aid? Congress is in the midst of hashing out federal spending and Republicans are pushing for considerable cuts to the federal budget. That threatens the $13 billion in military aid and $8 billion in humanitarian funds Biden has requested for Ukraine.
During his previous address to Congress, Zelensky urged Americans to view their contributions to Ukraine’s fight as an “investment” in democracy and global security. But with election season heating up and Ukraine skepticism growing on the MAGA right, it may be a harder sell this time around.Vehicles are seen departing the Burning Man festival in Black Rock City, Nevada, U.S., on Sept. 4, 2023.
Hard Numbers: Muddy festival, climate credits, Ukrainian amputees, astronauts return, "Barbie" tops charts
70,000: An unexpected storm this weekend trapped 70,000 attendees of the annual counter-culture Burning Man festival in the Black Rock Desert of northern Nevada, as floods turned the sand to mud. One person reportedly died, but officials said the incident was “unrelated to the weather.” Many have now begun their trips home.
450,000,000: At the first-ever African Climate Summit in Kenya, the United Arab Emirates committed to buying 450,000,000 of carbon credits from the Africa Carbon Markets Initiative. The initiative seeks to boost Africa's carbon credit production 19-fold by 2030.
20,000: According to the Superhumans Center for rehabilitation in Ukraine, 20,000 Ukrainians have become amputees since the start of the war with Russia. These include soldiers and civilians, with most injuries being blast-related.
4:Four astronauts returned to Earth in a SpaceX capsule after spending six months in the International Space Station. The crew included two NASA and one Russian astronaut, as well as the first astronaut from the United Arab Emirates to spend an extended time in space.
1: This week, "Barbie" beat the "Super Mario Bros. Movie" for the title of number one film of the year. The dynamic doll pulled in $1.38 billion globally, overtaking the cartoon character’s $1.36 billion. Sparkle!
As Sudan war worsens, Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield says UN must help
On August 1, the United States will take over the presidency of the UN Security Council.
Ian Bremmer sat down with US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield at the UN headquarters in New York to find out what’s on the US agenda for the council presidency next month.
High on the list is addressing issues of food insecurity, human rights violations, and calling out Russia for their ongoing war in Ukraine. But Thomas-Greenfield is also concerned about another global conflict that isn’t getting nearly the same amount of attention: the war in Sudan.
On July 23, the Sudan conflict entered its 100th day. The war is waging a devastating human toll, reigniting ethnic violence and increasing concerns the country is descending into a “full-scale civil war.” On April 15, tensions between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces erupted into armed conflict, turning Khartoum and surrounding areas into a war zone. More than 3 million people have been displaced from their homes, including 700,000 refugees who’ve fled to nearby countries. The health ministry reports that some 1,136 people have been killed, though the true number is believed to be much higher.
Ambassador Thomas-Greenfield says that maintaining peace and security around the globe is a fundamental responsibility of the Security Council. While the war in Ukraine is certainly a priority, the war in Sudan must also be on the agenda.
“The people in Sudan want to hear from the Security Council that we have not forgotten them, that we care about the human rights violations that are being committed,” Thomas-Greenfield told Bremmer. “They need to hear the world has not turned their backs on what is happening in their country.”
Watch the upcoming full interview on GZERO World with Ian Bremmer on gzeromedia.com/gzeroworld and on US public television. Check local listings.
Biden attends NATO Summit
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: Hey, everybody. Ian Bremmer here, and a happy Monday to you. A Quick Take to kick off your week.
And this week the big news is coming from NATO, the summit that will start within a day in Vilnius. Heads of state from all the key NATO countries, including of course President Biden. And the big topic will be Ukraine. Not the only one big question about Sweden, whether or not they're joining NATO or not. Erdogan can always decide to change his mind and cut a deal at the last minute. But the big news is what's going to happen with Ukraine, with continued military support for Ukraine that we still see expanding pretty much every week. And all, both in terms of the amount and also the types of armaments, and I'll get into that in a moment. And also as to where we stand on NATO membership and a pathway to that for Ukraine itself. Erdogan interestingly very strongly supporting Ukraine to get into NATO, also providing directly some Asov battalion leaders to the Ukrainians that, you know, he had told the Russians he wasn't going to do. This is a couple of indicators and there are many that the grain deal between the Ukrainians, the West and the Russians is not going to get extended in another week's time. Erdogan was critical to that deal. That relationship with Russia is getting more brittle by the day. At the same time, Ukraine is not about to get an immediate pathway into NATO, and Biden made that clear with my friend Fareed Zakaria. Over the weekend, Biden's perspective is, "Hey, we're fighting a war in Ukraine by proxy. We're giving all of the equipment, all the weapons, but we don't want the Americans directly fighting on the ground."
Don't want, a no fly zone with, you know, American fighter pilots defending Ukraine directly. That would both risk a direct war with the Russians, essentially, World War III is what we're talking about. And it's also just unacceptable. The Americans and other NATO allies don't want their own troops directly in harm's way. They're happy to fight a proxy war. They're not happy to fight directly. And that is not a unified position, by the way, the Polish government, the Balts, the Fins now a part of NATO increasingly willing to say, "Yes, we should be giving Ukraine membership now. And that doesn't mean we have to deploy Article 5, everybody knows we're not going to be fighting directly, but they need that security umbrella going forward. It's the only way that we can guarantee that the Russians won't invade again."
And by the way, Macron, who in the early days, the French president, of the war thought that was entirely too provocative, has flipped his view. And now in terms of NATO is aligned with the Poles and the Balts, which is very interesting, while the Americans, I think, are still closer to the German position. Be that as it may, there's an enormous amount of support that the West is providing to Ukraine militarily, the US is leading it. And I think what we are moving towards are multilateral guarantees. In other words that NATO collectively would be prepared to provide commitments to Ukraine, that going forward, they will continue to ensure that Ukrainian troops are trained, are equipped. Intelligence is provided. In other words that there are treaty obligations to Ukraine to help them defend themselves very effectively. That prevents the Russians from believing they get another bite of that apple, that they can wait NATO out, and that eventually Russia will be able to accomplish militarily what they've not been able to accomplish in the first 500 plus days of this war.
The other big thing that's being debated are the cluster munitions that are now going to be provided by the United States. They are not a signatory, of the ban of cluster munitions. And these things are banned because they are so brutally dangerous to civilians. A lot of those bomb pieces that are then on the ground and can sit around for a long time until, you know, civilian inadvertently months, years later walks, trips over it, it acts like a landmine, a kid curious picks it up, maims or kills the kid. I mean, anyone that has seen these cluster munitions in operation, and I know a lot of people that have been involved in NGOs that have tried to help clean them up in places in war zones they've been used, understands just how brutally dehumanizing these weapons are.
So, no, you absolutely don't want them in the fight. Having said that, the Russians aren't signatories. The Ukrainians aren't signatories, and the Russians have been using these weapons all the way through the war. So it's not with the fact that the Kremlin has come out and they said, how dare the Americans provide cluster munitions is just yet another point of massive hypocrisy of the war crimes that the Russians have committed. Now, I understand why Biden is doing this. The Americans are very very low on ammunition all in and want to give the Ukrainians everything they can to help ensure that the counteroffensive is successful. So far, the last couple months, very little land, Ukrainian land has been retaken by the Ukrainians, even as they have initiated this counteroffensive. Part of that reason, not all of it, part of that reason is because they lack ammunition. Part of it is they don't have any air defenses that are effective, any air cover in the region. And so as the Ukrainians take more land, they'll have a hard time defending those soldiers that'll be exposed. But be that as it may, you know, there is a question that the Ukrainians are not in the same position as NATO, you know, the Biden administration is saying, "we're going to defend Ukrainians as long as it takes that the Ukrainians are in charge of these negotiations." It makes one think that the Ukrainians are basically an American core national interest. The reality is that NATO is a core American national interest. The United States is a core national interest and long-term fighting and long-term security, long-term American ability to ensure that its values are promoted globally does mean that you don't want to be dragging yourself down to the same brutal fighting that the Russians are doing.
This has gotten the Americans in trouble in Iraq, in Afghanistan. Gotten Americans in trouble in Guantanamo, in Abu Ghraib. And so if I were Biden, would I approve these weapon systems for the Ukrainians? It would be very hard after many months of, you know, sort of thinking about it, maybe I would, but maybe that's why I'm not Biden. I mean, look, I'm never going to be elected president, but also is, I never would be interested in serving in a position like that, in part because the Americans do not have the same level of moral authority on the global stage that say, Canada does or Germany does, or Japan does. And you know, let's keep in mind, Japan and Germany, we're talking about countries that were involved in fighting World War II and actually being the initiators of World War II with massive brutality, but also systems that recognized that what they did was fundamentally inhumane and brutal and needed to be never repeated. And therefore the institutions had to grow and learn and become more morally accountable to their own people and globally. And I fear that the United States does not have that level of lesson taking from so many of its mistakes over the past several generations, you know, from Vietnam and from some of the others that I've just mentioned. And in that regard, even as it makes it harder for the Ukrainians to take additional territory in the counteroffensive, I would be a "no", on these cluster munitions. But I think it's a good place to debate and I'm more than happy to have that debate publicly over the coming weeks and months.
That's it for me. I hope everyone's doing well, and I'll talk to you all real soon.
Russian reservists recruited during a partial mobilization of troops attend a ceremony before departing to the Russia-Ukraine conflict zone, in the Rostov region, Russia October 31, 2022.
What We're Watching: Russian draft goes online, abortion pill ruling, US inflation slows, Taiwan gets new presidential candidate, Biden bets big on EVs
Russia’s digital draft
If you’re a young male citizen of Russia, it just got harder for you to hide from the war in Ukraine. The State Duma, Russia’s parliament, approved legislation on Tuesday that allows the government to send a military summons online instead of serving the papers in person. The upper house swiftly passed it into law on Wednesday.
“The summons is considered received from the moment it is placed in the personal account of a person liable for military service,” explains the chairman of the Duma’s defense committee, though the Kremlin insists no large-scale draft is imminent. If the person summoned fails to report for service within 20 days of the date listed on the summons, the state can suspend his driver’s license, deny him the right to travel abroad, and make it impossible for him to get a loan.
The database that provides names of potential draftees is assembled from medical, educational, and residential records, as well as insurance and tax data. Thousands of young Russians have already fled their country. Many more may soon try to join them.
Abortion pill stays on the market, but access rolled back
As the battle over abortion medication continues in the US, a federal appeals court has ruled that mifepristone – a drug approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 2000 – can remain on the market until the full case can be heard, likely by the Supreme Court.
Still, the court – made up of three appellate judges all appointed by Republican presidents – ruled that mifepristone cannot be sent by mail and rolled back a 2016 rule allowing it to be used up to 10-weeks gestation, dropping it back to seven weeks. It also rolled back other measures enforced by the Biden administration to enhance access after the gutting of Roe v. Wade.
This decision comes after a Trump-appointed, pro-life judge in Texas recently ordered a temporary stay on approval of mifepristone. Less than an hour later, another federal judge in Spokane, Washington, ruled that the drug must remain available in 17 Democratic-run states plus Washington, DC.
Importantly, the appeals court appeared to back the government's view that taking an approved drug off the market that accounts for more than half of all abortions nationwide would have “significant public consequences.”
As expected, abortion rights are shaping up to be one of the biggest political issues in the country. In Florida, Republicans are trying to fight a recently passed law banning abortion at six weeks, pushing for an outright ban.
US inflation cools — smartphones FTW
Good news for American households as US inflation fell to its lowest level in nearly two years in March. Prices grew at an annual clip of 5%, according to the latest figures released Wednesday. That’s down from 6% in February, marking the ninth consecutive month of falling inflation.
The highlights? Well, if you want to do some shopping in the US, now’s the time to cop a new smartphone, which will cost you 24% less than a year ago. And that summer road trip is on – gas prices are down more than 17%. At the same time, we remain “yolked,” as it were, to the Great Egg Crisis of 2023 — prices are up more than 30% despite easing a bit since February.
More broadly, that headline figure of 5% is still more than twice the pre-pandemic norm, and core inflation — which excludes volatile prices for fuel and food — is running at a toasty 5.6%.
That’ll keep the US Fed in the hot seat as it meets again in early May. Will they raise interest rates once more in a bid to finish off inflation? Or will they stand pat, worried about tipping the economy into a recession?
Will this man become Taiwan's next president?
Taiwan's ruling Democratic Progressive Party on Wednesday nominated VP William Lai as its candidate in the January 2024 presidential election.
Lai is widely viewed as a stand-in for term-limited President Tsai Ing-wen, reelected by a landslide in 2020. That means a tough line on China, which has made Tsai a darling in the West and reviled by Beijing. Lai used to support Taiwanese independence openly but has since moderated his position to align with the DPP's: We don’t need to formally break with the mainland because we’re already de-facto independent.
It's unclear who Lai will face, since the opposition Kuomintang Party — which, officially, is not pro-China but favors closer ties with China than the DPP — has yet to pick its candidate. (Terry Gou, the billionaire founder of Foxconn, the Taiwanese company that makes iPhones in China for Apple, is mulling another run.)
The vote will be Taiwan's most closely watched presidential election since 1996, when the self-ruled island ended decades of authoritarian rule. China responded to the democratic vibes by flexing its then-weak military muscles … until the US made it back off. This time, though, expect major Chinese fireworks if Beijing's candidate doesn't come out on top.
Biden’s ambitious new EV proposal
The Biden administration has proposed a new measure that would sharply accelerate the American auto industry’s transition to electric vehicles, and not everyone is happy about it.
The draft marks a big shift from Washington’s current carrots-based approach to boosting EV production to one that relies more on sticks. It would require carmakers to derive 60% of their sales revenue from electric vehicles by 2030, or face penalties. Currently, under a 2021 plan, the target is closer to 50% and manufacturers are allowed to opt in only if they want to. Under that plan, a range of subsidies and tax breaks aimed to incentivize consumers and manufacturers to ditch dirty fuel guzzlers.
Carmakers are already pushing back, saying that changes to assembly lines and supply chains will be expensive and take years to implement. But the Biden administration says the necessary funds were included in the Inflation Reduction Act, which earmarked $31 billion in subsidies for EV’s and tax credits for EV manufacturers.
Expect this to become a heated political issue in the coming months. Texas, despite being a leading investor in EV networks, has sued the federal government over the current EV standards, arguing that they are an overreach that violates states’ rights.