Who Does Europe Call If It Wants to Talk to the United States?

The inversion of the apocryphal Kissinger story is now complete.

Photo by micheile henderson on Unsplash

One of the hoariest international relations chestnuts is that when he was Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger asked “Who do I call if I want to call Europe?” It turns out that Kissinger never said it — but thought it was a pretty good line.

After the events of the past week it is worth wondering whether the European Union needs to ask that question about the United States.¹ How are foreign policy decisions made in this country?

See, over the past few months, both actors have been trying to replenish aid to Ukraine. This has been difficult in both jurisdictions, because there are some veto players who are more… let’s say “sympathetic” to Vladimir Putin. In other words, both governments have had to deal with bad-faith actors. As a result, both the EU and US have had internal bargaining to try and fashion some kind of compromise.

One of these two actors hammered out a deal through its system. One has not. And at this point in the newsletter, I bet you can guess which actor is which.

Let’s start with the more functional economic superpower right now. The overwhelming majority of EU states wanted to pass another aid package for Ukraine. The EU needs unanimity for most decisions of this kind, however, and Hungary’s Viktor Orban, a longtime fan and defender of Putin’s brand of illiberalism, had refused to give his assent, stalling the process since December.

In the run-up to an emergency European Union summit meeting last Thursday, however, someone leaked to the Financial Times’ Henry Foy, Andy Bounds, and Marton Dunai that folks in Brussels were fed up:

The EU will sabotage Hungary’s economy if Budapest blocks fresh aid to Ukraine at a summit this week, under a confidential plan drawn up by Brussels that marks a significant escalation in the battle between the EU and its most pro-Russian member state.

In a document drawn up by EU officials and seen by the Financial Times, Brussels has outlined a strategy to explicitly target Hungary’s economic weaknesses, imperil its currency and drive a collapse in consumer confidence in a bid to hurt “jobs and growth” if Budapest refuses to lift its veto against the aid to Kyiv.

Viktor Orban, Hungary’s premier, has vowed to block the use of the EU budget to provide €50bn in financial aid to Ukraine at an emergency summit of leaders on Thursday….

“This is Europe telling Viktor Orbán ‘enough is enough; it’s time to get in line. You may have a pistol, but we have the bazooka’,” said Mujtaba Rahman, Europe director at Eurasia Group, a consultancy.

Well, something made Orban change his mind, as the EU announced an agreement last Thursday: “to provide Ukraine with regular and predictable financial support between now and 2027.” How did this come about? The New York Times’ Matina Stevis-Gridneff, Monika Pronczuk, and Jason Horowitz report on an array of good cop-bad cop tactics:

European Council President Charles Michel played the bad cop. On Monday he called Mr. Orban to let him know there was no way he would be granted his demand for an annual veto right over the Ukraine fund.

And he put the E.U.’s “nuclear option” on the table, telling Mr. Orban that some member states were considering launching a procedure that would strip him of his vote entirely — in what would be an unprecedented use of the E.U.’s rule book.

Then, on Wednesday evening, Mr. Orban met with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni of Italy, his ideological friend from the hard right, in the executive suite of the stately, five-star Hotel Amigo — a staple for visiting dignitaries, tucked away in the heart of Brussels.

Sitting on green velvet armchairs against the leafy wallpaper, over a bottle of champagne, Ms. Meloni told him he had more to gain from the E.U. if he played along. She suggested that a review of the Ukraine fund in 2025 would go some way toward satisfying his need for close scrutiny of the spending. Now was not the moment to dig in….

Asked whether Mr. Orban gained any concessions in return for withdrawing his veto demand, Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, told reporters: “The answer to your question is a simple no.”

And now we turn to the United States, where the Biden administration has been trying to get Congress to approve another aid package since the summer. The removal of Kevin McCarthy as Speaker of the House, followed by weeks of uncertainty, eventually led Republicans to insist that the future of Ukraine aid would necessarily be linked to more funding for immigration enforcement along the Southern border.

I warned last December that while such a deal was possible, it was unlikely to be approved this year: “GOP members of Congress have an incentive not to agree to any deal in 2024 as well. This is for two reasons. First, they perceive border security as a winning issue and the last thing you want with a winning issue is to solve it before an election. Second, Republicans who support Trump would prefer that if a Ukrainian collapse happens, it does so under Biden’s watch.”

And here we are in 2024, and, well, I’ll just let Politico’s Alexander Burns describe the current state of play:

It has been apparent for a while that the future of American funding for Ukraine depends on two uncertainties: First, whether Biden will pay the ransom demanded by Republicans and back a new package of border policies; and second, whether Republicans will take yes for an answer even if it means handing Biden a political victory.

The answer to the first question is no longer a mystery. As the Senate negotiations progressed, Biden signaled with little subtlety that if Congress passes a set of stricter immigration policies then he will sign them into law. Despite progressive misgivings, Democratic leaders seem increasingly inclined to see this as a chance to address swing voters’ unease with the condition of the border.

The second matter — Republicans’ openness to approving a bipartisan border agreement — remains unresolved. Now that Senate negotiators have reached a deal, we will see how many Republicans embrace it.

The answer, according to the Washington Post’s Liz Goodwin and Leigh Ann Caldwell, is, not many Republicans are embracing it at all:

The rapid collapse in support in the Senate reflects the upside-down politics of the border deal among Republicans that began several weeks ago, when Trump began slamming it. The staunchly conservative union for Border Patrol officers endorsed the deal on Monday, saying it would “codify into law authorities that U.S. Border Patrol agents never had in the past.” And immigrant and refugee rights groups, including Amnesty International USA, blasted the legislation as containing “the most extreme anti-immigrant proposals this country has seen in 100 years.”

But a growing number of Republicans on Capitol Hill have painted the legislation as too soft….

Trump has made addressing the border core to his 2024 election message and told Republican lawmakers not to back the bill even before negotiators released the text.

“This is a very bad bill for his career,” Trump said of Lankford, the deal’s lead Republican negotiator, who is among the conference’s most conservative members, in an interview with Dan Bongino on Monday.

“He’s focused on the campaign,” Lankford said when asked on CNN to respond to Trump’s comment. “I’m going to do whatever I can to secure the nation as fast as I can regardless of election cycle.”

To sum up: after agreeing to the linkage that Republicans insisted on between Ukraine aid and border protection, Republicans are now walking away en masse from the deal they wanted.

All of this reminds me of something that Politico’s Nahal Toosi wrote last month, about how European diplomats view the United States right now:

When I asked the European ambassador to talk to me about America’s deepening partisan divide, I expected a polite brushoff at best. Foreign diplomats are usually loath to discuss domestic U.S. politics.

Instead, the ambassador unloaded for an hour, warning that America’s poisonous politics are hurting its security, its economy, its friends and its standing as a pillar of democracy and global stability.

The U.S. is a “fat buffalo trying to take a nap” as hungry wolves approach, the envoy mused. “I can hear those Champagne bottle corks popping in Moscow — like it’s Christmas every fucking day.”….

The diplomats are aghast that so many U.S. leaders let their zeal for partisan politics prevent the basic functions of government.

So… yeah. I wish I had a more optimistic conclusion to draw. There is none.

1. This is not the first time this version of the question has come up either.