Two years ago, the United States and the European Union (EU) jointly imposed sanctions on Russia.
After two years of sanctions, the EU turned out to be the biggest loser, seemingly being "sanctioned" by both the U.S. and Russia.
If we compare GDP growth rates, the difference is very clear.
In the past year of 2023, the entire EU's GDP grew by 0.4% year-on-year, not even reaching 1%, and Germany's GDP was actually negative.
In contrast, Russia's GDP grew by 3.6% last year, exceeding expectations, and the U.S. GDP broke through 27 trillion U.S. dollars, setting a historical record.
Over the span of two years, the EU has been suffering greatly.
What used to be cheap imported energy now has to be bought at high prices.
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What might have cost 10 yuan before now costs 15 or even more than 20, invisibly driving up their inflation.
It was later discovered that the high-priced energy was actually bought at a low price by the U.S. from Russia.
Doesn't this deeply hurt the fragile hearts of allies?
They were supposed to impose sanctions together, but the U.S. turned out to be a "middleman," reaping the benefits from its own allies.
The U.S. thought: An ally that can't be reaped is not a good ally!
When the EU looks at Russia's unexpected economic growth rate and then at its own internal decline, and then looks back at the U.S. that is reaping its benefits, it begins to feel disheartened, leading to a dramatic scene: On one hand, they are shouting to fight Russia, and on the other hand, they are importing a large amount of resources and energy from Russia.
According to data recently released by Eurostat, in March of this year, the EU significantly increased its steel imports from Russia, importing 328 million euros worth of steel from Russia that month, a year-on-year surge of 70%.
This steel was bought by European countries such as Belgium, Italy, Denmark, the Czech Republic, and the Netherlands.
Hungary resumed purchasing Russian steel after four months.
In addition to steel, the EU also imported a large amount of aluminum products from Russia in March, more than 90 million euros, a year-on-year increase of 30%, with Germany being the largest buyer, with a purchase volume that increased more than fourfold, and Spain's imports of aluminum products from Russia increased by nearly 70% year-on-year.
Let's figure out what's going on here.
The EU imports steel from Russia, uses the steel to produce weapons, and then sells the weapons to Ukraine, and then Ukraine fights against Russia?
From historical experience, this kind of thing is not uncommon.
Sanctions are sanctions, but business is still business, after all, who would be against money?
The West does not sanction all industries in Russia.
For example, Russia's grain exports have not been sanctioned much by the EU.
In 2023, the EU still bought 4.2 million tons of grains and oil seeds from Russia.
This 4 million tons is only a small part of Russia's grain exports, after all, Russia's grain export ranks first in the world.
However, at the end of last month, the EU announced that it would increase import tariffs on Russian grains, citing the need to maintain the stability of the European grain market and protect European farmers.
But this move has hardly any impact on Russia.
Some European media believe that this is just to appease Ukraine.
Why?
Because after the Russia-Ukraine conflict, the EU imported a large amount of agricultural products from Ukraine, but due to the low prices, it caused an impact on the European grain market, and European farmers began to boycott.
Eventually, the EU restricted the import of Ukrainian agricultural products, and then imported grains and other agricultural products from Russia.
Ukraine believes this is unfair and has complaints about the EU.
Therefore, there was the EU's token sanction on Russian grains.
The U.S. did not react much to this.
What the U.S. wants is to strike the euro, and the goal has been achieved.
According to the latest international payment data released by SWIFT, the U.S. dollar's share is 47%, stable and rising, while the euro's share has fallen to 22%, a significant decline from the previous share close to 40%.
The market lost by the euro has mostly been taken over by the U.S. dollar, consolidating the dollar's position, and the euro has lost its ability to compete with the U.S. dollar.
Therefore, a Russia-Ukraine conflict has allowed the U.S. dollar to complete a round of reaping by striking the euro, coupled with the impact of the U.S. dollar's interest rate hikes, a large amount of risk-averse funds in Europe have flowed to the U.S., leaving Europe with high inflation brought by high-priced energy imports, and high industrial production costs that have not come down, hitting Europe's manufacturing and foreign trade exports.
The EU is also very clear that it has not much resources and energy itself, most of which have to be imported from Russia.
Imposing sanctions on Russia completely is like "killing a thousand enemies and losing eight hundred."
However, it is restricted by the U.S. everywhere, and the so-called EU autonomy has always been suppressed by the U.S. Now, Macron has stood up and frankly said that Europe can no longer rely on the U.S. And before the U.S. interest rate cut time is clear, the European Central Bank will start interest rate cuts in June, no longer blindly following the pace of the Federal Reserve.
Although it is a helpless move in the face of its own economic situation, it also shows that the U.S. influence is gradually weakening.