The European Union is paying close attention to what is happening in the countryside in the United States and in the days following November 5. Brussels officials will eagerly await the election results, because what happens on the other side of the Atlantic could represent a major shift in public policy. From trade and subsidies to industry, including the field of digital supervision and antitrust investigations. But there is something that raises the most fears: the removal of aid to Ukraine to deal with the Russian invasion.
Earlier this year, the US Congress approved a $60 billion aid package to provide military aid to kyiv, but US aid to Ukraine is approaching $200 billion. For its part, the EU transferred 43.5 billion euros to the Ukrainian armed forces.
At the time, Donald Trump tried to push for this aid to be in the form of a loan and not a grant. But ultimately, Congress approved military aid.
What is clear is the enormous uncertainty that this electoral process generates for the Old Continent. Any change in strategy, with this conflict, could cause a new economic reversal in Europe.
Donald Trump’s victory could shake up the conflict in Ukraine. The former president and Republican candidate insisted he would act “very quickly” to end this conflict and that of the Middle East. At the same time, he has threatened to impose more tariffs, even on his allies, to virtually force them to increase their military spending, and also to keep pressure on China.
Democratic Party candidate Kamala Harris promised during the campaign that she would maintain economic support for Ukraine in the same spirit as Joe Biden. The current goal of the EU and the US is to build a containment wall against Putin in Ukraine.
Washington correspondent for Radio Nacional de España, María Carou, said in the podcast Ukrainian newspaper that in addition to the strategic reason, there is the economic reason “the weapons that are sent to Ukraine are manufactured in the United States, with what this means for employment and the economy of the country in general”, so the interests are very marked.
Stop the war in 24 hours
Donald Trump does not hide the fact that he gets along well with Russian President Vladimir Putin. During a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelensky at the end of September, Trump said he had “very good relations” with the Russian leader. “I have very good relations, as you know, with President Putin. If we win, I think we will resolve them very quickly,” he said, referring to the conflict between the two countries.
The former president assured that he would give impetus to peace negotiations with Russia. In an interview, he assured that he would negotiate a “fair and rapid agreement within 24 hours” to end the conflict. “I think if we win, we will solve the problem very quickly,” he said.
In a letter sent this summer to EU leaders, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán aligned himself ideologically with Donald Trump in many respects. He warned that Donald Trump had “a plan to end the war in Ukraine” and urged European leaders to hold high-level talks with China to form a peace conference.
But Zelensky doesn’t seem very willing to sit down at the negotiating table: “But, you know, it takes two to tango,” he told Trump during their meeting at the end of the ‘summer. The friction that could arise between the two leaders, in the event that he is re-elected, could lead the United States to leave Ukraine to fend for itself in the conflict and the European Union to fill the void left by Washington in the war .
NATO
The European Union’s (EU) High Representative for Foreign Affairs, Joseph Borrell, warned earlier this spring that “the umbrella of World War II (by the United States) may not always be there. Depending on who governs in Washington, “we cannot count on their capacity to protect,” he said, referring to Donald Trump’s victory.
In this sense, Harris’ position is clear. The Democratic candidate declared at the start of the electoral campaign, after succeeding Joe Biden, that she would “strongly” support Ukraine and “our NATO allies”.
But in Trump’s case, it’s not so clear. The editor-in-chief of the foreign policy publication The national interest and senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center, Jacob Heilbrunn, recalled in a BBC interview that during his first term, Trump “pushed the boundaries, attacked NATO and moved closer to North Korea and of Russia, but he didn’t cut it.” our links in Asia or Europe. This time the threat would come true. The expert took the liberty of assuring that he would “formally leave NATO” or, failing that, “would declare that he does not believe in Article 5”, this is what compromises mutual defense.
At the time, he had already pressured allies to increase defense spending to 2% of GDP, and they succeeded. Additionally, he promised that if he returned to the White House, he would again push for that rate to be raised to 3 percent.
