French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said Wednesday that a dispute with the US over the Australian submarine deal is not resolved despite Washington entering into a dialogue with Paris.
“The crisis is serious, it is not resolved just because we have resumed dialogue and it will last. To get out of it we will need acts rather than words,” Le Drian said.
France lost a $66 billion submarine contract with Australia due to AUKUS, the new military pact between the US, the UK, and Australia that gives Canberra nuclear submarines. The French didn’t learn about the deal until the day it was announced.
The Biden administration has been on a diplomatic blitz to smooth things over with France. In Paris on Tuesday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with French President Emmanuel Macron and was very apologetic.
“We could and we should have communicated better,” Blinken said in an interview after meeting with Macron. “We sometimes tend to take for granted a relationship as important and deep as the one that links France and the United States.”
AUKUS is meant to counter China in the Indo-Pacific, an area that stretches from India to the eastern Pacific. France is not upset over the implications the pact has for militarizing the region but instead feels left out.
Le Drian said negotiations with the US that will be resumed with a meeting between Biden and Macron later this month will focus on three points. One point is the “strategic importance” of France and Europe’s role in the Indo-Pacific. France has stepped up its military activity in the region this year and sent a nuclear submarine into the South China Sea back in February.
Another point France will discuss with the US is the idea of a stronger European defense. Le Drian said the third point will be how the US can help France in its wars in Africa’s Sahel region.
State and DOD really messed up big time with this one. Didn’t anyone recall that France only rejoined full participation in NATO in 2007 ? From 1966 until 2007, France was a formal treaty member of NATO but pulled out of all the rest of NATO activities. Its well within the realm of possibility that the big EU members simply pull a DeGaulle 1966 vis a vie NATO.
What happens if Pentagon no longer has access to any of its military bases in EU countries ? What happens if Pentagon no longer has EU military support for its military adventures ? What happens to the MIC if EU no longer buys their over priced equipment ?
Ans: US sanctions.
True – and the paradox is sanctions no longer have the effect they did 25 years ago. today sanctions appear to only further isolate Washington from the prosperous world.
Yes, and the ‘developing world’ as well. They are in clear violation of international law and have pretty much eliminated American soft power.
Great point Washington has squandered all its ‘soft’ power. It’s tragic. It feels like Biden = Andropov