US-Europe standoff: new geopolitical order challenging BRI

The world is not only witnessing rapid geopolitical developments but also surprising ones, leading to varied interpretations. This uncertainty makes it essential to parse public narratives before deciphering the hidden catalysts driving these shifts.

An EU-US rift regarding "global settings" has re-emerged. The last notable phase of this divide was when former German Chancellor Angela Merkel attempted to persuade Trump 1.0 over the Ukraine war.

While the EU currently pushes for continued war, the US advocates for a negotiated settlement centring a rare-earth minerals deal. Beneath the surface lies burden sharing. The transatlantic alliance seeks to divide global responsibilities - with the EU managing previous ventures and the US marching towards the Asia-Pacific. However, a key disagreement persists.

Some European leaders, such as Estonia's Kaja Kallas, support neutralising Russia first and believe that handling Moscow effectively will help counter China. "If we will do Russia right, we will do China right," insists Kallas. However, the US wants to shift its posture towards China immediately, viewing its global rise as an imminent threat while offloading the Ukraine conflict in Brussels.

The US is seemingly exploring ways to weaken Russia's alignment with China by reinforcing its dependency on Western systems like SWIFT, reinstating business ties and defrosting assets. Donald Trump has himself admitted, "The stupidity of what they've done, I'm going to have to un-unite them and I think I can do that too. I have to un-unite them."

This approach has long existed within US foreign policy circles. When US Secretary of State Marco Rubio was a senator, he suggested a potential Russia partnership to isolate China geopolitically and economically. Both Biden and Trump administrations followed suit. Trump has explicitly linked this strategy to preserving the dollar's supremacy, stating, "If we lose the dollar as the standard, that's like losing a war." Consequently, he has threatened 100% tariffs on BRICS nations and others pursuing de-dollarisation in trade. This reveals that Trump's strategy is not about peace. His administration appears to be replicating Nixon's 1972 playbook which exploited the Sino-Soviet split to weaken the USSR.

The "reverse Nixon" or "reverse Kissinger" approach references the secret 1971 trip that Henry Kissinger made to Beijing to facilitate US-China rapprochement and exacerbate the Soviet-China tensions. A similar strategy in Trump's first term was hindered by the Russia-gate hoax. This is why he has now assembled a team of neoconservatives and China hawks, like Marco Rubio as Secretary of State, Mike Waltz as National Security Advisor and Pete Hegseth as Defence Secretary.

However, this strategy will probably fail since unlike the Cold War-era Sino-Soviet tensions, Russia and China currently share deeper economic and strategic ties. While the Trump administration may try to reorient Russia westward, Moscow is unlikely to abandon its Beijing partnership, and the US may further unite these powers.

An economic war within a hybrid-strategy framework might occur. The first target might be China's supply chain infrastructure like the BRI and associated development projects. Terrorist and proxy attacks are already hampering CPEC. Additionally, Western-backed NGOs possibly disrupting BRI projects under the guise of social and environmental concerns is a tested tactic.

Governments in Africa and Europe will be constantly pressured to withdraw from BRI, and colour revolutions or coups in non-compliance cases cannot be ruled out. Ultimately, Washington's current geopolitical manoeuvring is less about global stability and more about maintaining supremacy in an increasingly multipolar world. The question remains: will the new multipolar global order evolve beyond America's traditional divide-and-conquer strategies?