POLITICS Bloomberg Businessweek March 2, 202031better appreciates the threat from China, “it could
compromise what is the most successful military
alliance in history.”
NATO’s mandate is security matters, including
perceived threats. So it’s appropriate perhaps that
China, and a company like Huawei, be discussed
within the group. But analysts say it’s the manner
in which it’s being raised that’s causing concern.
Senior officials in Europe sound perplexed: The
U.S. tells them Huawei is a problem, but it offers
no real solutions other than “don’t do business
with Huawei,” they say. And then the White House
threatens punitive actions for engaging with the
Chinese company.or China, more by the United States, ironically,
than by either Russia or China,” he says. “It’s sim-
ply a natural fact of life that if you are coerced in
this way with threats and trade sanctions by your
closest ally, you start wondering how much of an
ally they are.”
The U.S. approach risks a boomerang effect.
European nations have largely—but not absolutely—
supported America on foreign policy for decades.
But as the U.S. turns the screws on Europe on trade
and Huawei, some officials say the backing could
become less automatic in the future when the coun-
try comes calling for help.
French President Emmanuel Macron hasThe Huawei/China issue is bleeding into
broader questions about ties with some of
America’s most steadfast allies since the end of
World War II. The Trump administration has
gone so far as to suggest that cars imported from
Europe are a threat to the country’s national secu-
rity. It’s also threatened secondary tariffs against
European carmakers unless countries back the
president’s hard line on Iran.
By linking foreign policy so directly to trade and
economic matters, the U.S. is leading Europe to
think about how to preserve its independence on
policymaking, according to Adam Thomson, the
U.K.’s envoy to NATO from 2014 to 2016 and now
director of the European Leadership Network, a
London-based think tank. “There is quite a feeling
in Europe that Europe is being coerced on some
fairly key foreign policy issues, whether it is Iranstepped up his calls in recent months for Europe to
adopt a more independent foreign policy that relies
less on the U.S. That said, he’s also been a critic of
NATO, an alliance that he said in November was
suffering a “brain death.” Macron is pressing for
a standalone European army with the European
Union in command, though that prospect makes
some EU members uncomfortable, according to
senior European officials.
Europe doesn’t want a full-blown trade war
with the U.S.; it also sees the experience of China,
Mexico, and Canada in their own trade disputes
with Trump as a cautionary tale. Nor does Europe
want NATO to fall apart. Still, there’s a feeling
among some officials that long-understood norms
in the trans-Atlantic relationship are fracturing.
It wasn’t always this way. Under the Obama
ILLUSTRATION BY JACK TAYLOR administration, trade and political priorities