The President of the United States, Joe Biden, receives the German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, this Friday for send a unity message against the Sino-Russian partnership, which has warned against further Western arms deliveries to Ukraine.
This visit, aimed at “reaffirming the deep ties of friendship” between the two countries, according to the White House, is the second to Washington by the German sovereign since February 2022, and has aroused the ire of the Kremlin, which affirmed that new supplies of weapons in Kiev they will only succeed in “prolonging” the conflict in Ukraine.
“We note that the United States is advancing in its policy of increasing arms deliveries to Ukraine and persuading its protégés to do the same,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov said on Friday.
The White House has already announced that the United States will announce on Friday a new package of military aid to Ukrainecomposed mainly of ammunition.
common front
The German Chancellor will be received this afternoon in the Oval Office of the White House. Both leaders are expected to make brief statements to reporters.
The absence of a joint press conference gave rise to requests on the persistence of tensions that have recently arisen over the delivery of German tanks to Ukraine.
This point has been “largely over-interpreted”, says the chancellor’s spokesman, Steffen Hebestreit, for whom this is a “short working visit“.
For Hebestreit, relations between the United States and Germany, dependent on NATO’s strategic Atlantic alliance and US military protection, They are very good” despite the ups and downs generated by Joe Biden being in power.
Ultimately, the two allies strive to prove that they are in total harmony afterwards various friction attacksFirst, Biden’s frontal opposition to the controversial Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project between Germany and Russia since his arrival in government, or the huge US subsidies to green industry foreseen in his Inflation Reduction Act (IRA, for his acronym in English).
But the episode of the tanks has also been a source of tension between the two countries.
Germany finally agreed on January 26 to send a significant number of its Leopard tanks, giving a new dimension to military support for Ukraine.
The United States has also promised heavy armored vehiclesan announcement that has given rise to various interpretations in recent days.
Washington gave the green light for the sole purpose of ending German reluctance to send tanks, White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan admitted Sunday.
Biden had “originally decided not to send them because his military told him they wouldn’t be useful on the battlefield,” he explained to ABC.
But in the face of Germany’s refusal, the US president acted “in the interests of Alliance unity and to make sure that Ukraine gets what it wants,” Sullivan said.
A version that the German government does not share, assuring that the discussions consisted in building a “common approach” without Berlin forcing Washington to make the decision.
The Chinese challenge
China is another challenge for this meeting. Washington would welcome the adoption by Germany, a major exporting power linked to Beijing a stronger diplomatic position against the Asian giant.
The reasons for tension between Washington and Beijing have multiplied in recent times, from the episode of the demolition of the Chinese balloon on US territory – which according to the Biden government was for espionage purposes – to the restrictions on the use of the social network TikTok.
United States too accuses China of evaluating arms shipments to Russia to help it in its offensive against Ukraine, which Beijing denies.
That fear was manifested in Scholz’s explicit request Thursday from the rostrum of the Bundestag, Germany’s legislative body: “Do not supply weapons to the Russian aggressor!” he said.
The meeting between Biden and Scholz thus offers “a precious opportunity to send a clear and persuasive signal to China”, summed up the former US diplomat Jeffrey Rathke, currently president of the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies at Johns Hopkins University, Washington.
Source: AFP
Source: Clarin
Mary Ortiz is a seasoned journalist with a passion for world events. As a writer for News Rebeat, she brings a fresh perspective to the latest global happenings and provides in-depth coverage that offers a deeper understanding of the world around us.