There is no doubt that China, an increasingly competitive economic power, represents an economic challenge to the EU. However, the European leaders' discourse goes far beyond the economic challenge. Now China is described as a military threat. Among the most hawkish China-haters are EU President Ursula von der Leyen, EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, and Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen. It remains a mystery what they want to achieve.

The main reason that the EU, unlike China, gave in to Donald Trump’s tariff assault without a fight, is not that the EU’s trade dependency on the US is much greater than China’s, but rather that it has other priorities, first of all Ukraine; its military depends on the US; its bureaucracy is not well fit for this type of struggle; and it lacks internal coherence if it should choose to fight back. It is therefore an easy prey for a predator like Trump.

US President Donald Trump wants to transfer the responsibility for the Ukraine war to the EU. He has mockingly assured that Ukraine with the support from EU can win the war and restore the 1991 borders. US will happily sell them the weapons, but EU has to pay. So now the EU countries are looking deep into their wallets. Will they succeed in continuing the war until the bitter end?

Ukrainian President, Vladimir Zelensky, and the EU can breathe a sigh of relief. The danger of peace in Ukraine has passed. Trump says he is disappointed with the Russians, and he has assured that Ukraine can win the war and restore the 1991 borders. He promised support with US weapons for as long as it takes, on the condition that somebody else pays. Why did Trump fail?

Things don’t look particularly good for the EU lately. Economic stagnation, reports pointing to falling competitivity in key sectors, negative economic impact of the sanctions, increasing financial burden from the Ukraine war, caught up in the middle of the US-China confrontation, and so on. There are ways out of this, but political and institutional factors question the ability of EU to succeed.

While the atrocities in Gaza continue, the Western powers, the alleged standard-bearers of civilisation against barbarians, continue supporting Israel unconditionally, while kindly asking Israel to please kill fewer civilians. Apart from losing credibility, they are nurturing future terrorists. We can only hope that the fact that quite a lot of decent people in the West are showing their solidarity with Palestine, despite their Governments, can limit this damage.

The management of the Venezuelan economy has been surprisingly incompetent and disastrous, despite sitting on the world's biggest oil reserves. Sanctions and embargo against Venezuela have accelerated the decline, with inflation bordering on hyperinflation, a collapsing economy and mass migration. There is much to dislike in the Venezuelan Government and its policy, and by the way in the opposition, too. But sanctions and embargo is the wrong policy, causing further suffering for the Venezuelan people. Recognizing a self-proclaimed president and supporting a bogus uprising is converting it into a farce. It is old US policy to treat its foes like this. But what the EU is doing, supporting this, is very difficult to understand. Now the Europeans can no longer just blame the Venezuelan Government. They have decided to take on shared responsibility for the suffering of the Venezuelan people.

When Mauricio Macri won the Argentine Presidential elections in 2015, there was excitement in Washington, the European Union and, above all, among the Latin American right. They would finally get rid of the incompetent and populist government in Argentina. 'The technocrats to the rescue', wrote 'The Economist', and stated that Macri 'is choosing well-regarded technocrats to occupy the main economic positions'. Unfortunately, after making a heroic attempt to rescue the country, Macri lost the presidential elections in October 2019 and the same bad populist guys (and women) are returning. Or this is what the international mainstream media want us to believe. They are not only wrong, it is a flagrant distortion of the facts.

The ongoing US trade war against China will have deep longer term repercussions, independently of whether a trade deal is reached to end it. Had it only been a question of erratic actions by a lunatic president, the effects could have been limited. But Trump is not alone. The general mood in the US establishment is that China should be contained, or even rolled back. So the key-word is now ‘disentangling’ of the US economy from China.

The ongoing trade war that the US has unleashed against China will change the history of the 21st century, independently of whether an agreement is eventually reached between the parties or not. It signals the decision of the US to prevent China from growing into an economic superpower, using whatever means it has at hand. But this is an extremely dangerous and futile policy. China has more than four times the population of the US. As it develops, its economy will inevitably surpass the US. There is nothing the US can do to prevent that, so they will have to find out how best to live with it. Unfortunately, this is not how an important part of the US establishment sees it.