Schaeuble Warns U.S. Against Ceding Leadership to China, Russia

by Dramelin 11:30 PM 0 comments

Wolfgang Schaeuble, Germany’s veteran finance minister, urged the U.
to limit Russian and Chinese influence or risk bringing about “the end of our liberal world order.
” The comments by Schaeuble, who’s been a member of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cabinet since she took office in 2005 and regularly speaks out on foreign affairs, reflect concern among some European policy makers that President Donald Trump’s administration is increasingly disengaging the U.
from its global role.
Europe and the U.
must stand together at a difficult time, the minister said.
“I doubt whether the United States truly believes that the world order would be equally sound if China or Russia were to fill the gaps left by the U.
, and if China and Russia were simply given a free hand to dominate the spheres of influence that they have defined for themselves,” Schaeuble said in a speech at the American Academy in Berlin, a think tank that promotes U.
“That would be the end of our liberal world order.
” Schaeuble’s blunt remarks to an audience including former U.
Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers came less than three weeks before Merkel hosts Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping and other Group of 20 leaders for a potentially difficult summit in Hamburg.
Moves by Trump to pull out of the Paris climate accord, reduce U.
Pacific trade ties and call U.
financial commitments to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization into question risk leaving a void in global leadership.
Merkel and Kissinger plan to speak on Wednesday in Berlin at an event commemorating the Marshall Plan, the U.
-funded initiative to rebuild Western Europe after World War II.
Schaeuble, 74, sought to draw a link between U.
complaints about Germany’s trade surplus and the need to maintain involvement in Europe’s security.
“After all, it is surely in the United States’ own interest to ensure security and economic stability in its markets, both in Europe and around the world,” he said late Tuesday.
“This is a basic precondition if the U.
wants to increase its exports and cut its trade deficit.