France Calls on Europe to Ditch U.S Dollar, Seek ‘Strategic Autonomy’
France has called on fellow European nations to seek “strategic autonomy” by ditching the U.S. dollar and reducing reliance on the United States.
The call for de-dollarizing came after French President Emmanuel Macron met with Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping during a three-day official state visit to China.
According to Politico, Macron held a six-hour-long meeting with Xi before making the call to ditch the dollar.
Macron made it extremely clear that France wants nothing to do with WWIII as the nation seeks to build relations with China.
Instead, the French leader emphasizes that Europe must employ “strategic autonomy,” presumably led by France, to become a “third superpower,” according to Politico.
Macron issued the call to action while speaking with reporters aboard COTAM Unité, France’s Air Force One.
The French president said that the “great risk” facing Europe right now is that it “gets caught up in crises that are not ours, which prevents it from building its strategic autonomy.”
This isn’t the first time Macron has suggested reducing dependence on the U.S., however.
As Slay News reported at the time, Macron called for a “single global order” in November while discussing the power interests of Russia and China and the threat of war.
“We are in a jungle and we have two big elephants trying to become more and more nervous,” he said.
“If they become very nervous and start a war, it will be a big problem for the rest of the jungle.
“You need the cooperation of a lot of other animals, tigers, monkeys, and so on.”
Meanwhile, Macron’s concept of strategic autonomy has been “enthusiastically endorsed” by Xi and the CCP.
The Chinese regime has been focusing on the notion that the West is in decline while China rises.
China beleives that weakening the transatlantic relationship will accelerate this trend.
“The paradox would be that, overcome with panic, we believe we are just America’s followers,” said Macron.
“The question Europeans need to answer … is it in our interest to accelerate [a crisis] on Taiwan? No.
“The worse thing would be to think that we Europeans must become followers on this topic and take our cue from the U.S. agenda and a Chinese overreaction.”
Shortly after Macron met with Xi, China ramped up military intimidation efforts against Taiwan.
“Just hours after his flight left Guangzhou headed back to Paris, China launched large military exercises around the self-ruled island of Taiwan, which China claims as its territory but the U.S. has promised to arm and defend,” Politico reported.
“Those exercises were a response to Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-Wen’s 10-day diplomatic tour of Central American countries that included a meeting with Republican U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy while she transited in California.
“People familiar with Macron’s thinking said he was happy Beijing had at least waited until he was out of Chinese airspace before launching the simulated ‘Taiwan encirclement’ exercise.”
According to French officials who accompanied the president, Macron’s submissive statements come after he and Xi “intensely” discussed Taiwan.
That said, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who accompanied Macron, said she stressed stability in the region.
The unelected Eurocrat reportedly told Xi during their meeting last Thursday in Beijing that “The threat [of] the use of force to change the status quo is unacceptable.”
According to the report, Xi responded by calling anyone who thought they could influence the CCP on Taiwan deluded.
“Europeans cannot resolve the crisis in Ukraine; how can we credibly say on Taiwan, ‘watch out, if you do something wrong we will be there’?” Xi said.
“If you really want to increase tensions that’s the way to do it.”
According to Yanmei Xie, a geopolitics analyst at Gavekal Dragonomics, “Europe is more willing to accept a world in which China becomes a regional hegemon.”
“Some of its leaders even believe such a world order may be more advantageous to Europe.”
However, Xi reported became angered during his trilateral talks with von der Leyen and Macron last Thursday.
“Xi was visibly annoyed for being held responsible for the Ukraine conflict and he downplayed his recent visit to Moscow,” said one source who was present in the room, according to Politico.
“He was clearly enraged by the U.S. and very upset over Taiwan, by the Taiwanese president’s transit through the U.S. and [the fact that] foreign policy issues were being raised by Europeans.”
“In this meeting, Macron and von der Leyen took similar lines on Taiwan, this person said,” the outlet reports.
“But Macron subsequently spent more than four hours with the Chinese leader, much of it with only translators present, and his tone was far more conciliatory than von der Leyen’s when speaking with journalists.”
Macron suggested that Europe was too dependent on the United States for weapons and energy.
Instead, European nations must now focus on boosting their own defense industries, Macron argues.
But perhaps most notable was his suggestion that Europe needs to reduce its dependence on the “extraterritoriality of the U.S. dollar.”
The comment is a line that both China and Russia have been emphasizing.
“If the tensions between the two superpowers heat up … we won’t have the time nor the resources to finance our strategic autonomy and we will become vassals,” he said.
Russia, China, Iran, and other countries have been hit by U.S. sanctions in recent years that are based on denying access to the dominant dollar-denominated global financial system.
Some in Europe have complained about the “weaponization” of the dollar by Washington.
The sanctions force European companies to give up business and cut ties with third countries or face crippling secondary embargoes.
While sitting in the stateroom of his A330 aircraft, Macron claimed to have already “won the ideological battle on strategic autonomy” for Europe.
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