Paris will keep “Europeanizing” this conflict as it takes up the EU rotating presidency, to varying degrees of success. Trade talks with Australia will likely hit a brick wall, a new U.S.-EU partnership on trade and technology will likely suffer, and simmering Brexit tensions with the U.K. will probably keep flaring up. Nothing on its own to make the White House lose sleep, given its focus on a foreign policy that can be sold to the American middle-class. But hardly conducive to progress on global issues like climate change, nuclear proliferation, and the rise of China, not least because Australia will now have to wait even longer to renew its submarine fleet. There’s now a “big rift” in the heart of NATO, the U.K.’s former ambassador to France, Peter Ricketts, points out.

Source: Washington Post September 21, 2021 06:22 UTC