President Joe Biden’s performance at the meeting with foreign leaders in Britain last week was a disgrace. Biden cut deals with Britain that sold out America’s interests, and for doing so, he won the worshipful accolades of the Europeans, the Brits and the Canadians. It’s amazing how popular you are at a party when you pay everyone’s bills. Except Biden isn’t spending his own money, of course. He’s spending ours.
It would be an understatement to say that the Euroland leaders weren’t big fans of former President Donald Trump. Trump went to the G-7 meetings and told his international peers that there was a new sheriff in town and that his foremost mission was to put America first. He canceled bad trade deals in which other countries were cheating. Trump insisted that the Germans, the French and the Italians paid more of the NATO bills for their own defense. He pulled America out of the Paris climate accord in part because almost none of the other nations was abiding by it.
What a difference a new president makes. The Euroland leaders of the G-7 are beside themselves with joy over Biden’s “cooperative tone” and concessions at the meetings in Britain this weekend. A Reuters headline captured the euphoria of the foreign heads of state: “G7 Source Praises Biden After ‘Complete Chaos’ of Trump.”
Is anyone surprised by the lovefest? “It’s great to have a U.S. president who is part of the club,” France’s Emmanuel Macron said in a lengthy statement, saturating the new American president with praise.
Why wouldn’t Canada, Russia and the Europeans be celebrating? Biden gave away the store. Let me count the ways:
No. 1: He reiterated his promise that America will jump off the climate change cliff first and dismantle U.S. energy production as a sign of his commitment to stopping global warming. Yes, that is Russian President Vladimir Putin smiling. This is a reaffirmation of the U.S. undermining our own energy security after Beijing announced it has no interest in compromising its economic prosperity in the name of global warming. They have more significant and more immediate ambitions than to worry about the planet’s temperature in 50 or 75 years.
No. 2: He agreed to a global tax that will harmonize U.S. taxes with those of the socialist European nations and fight against international tax competition, which has historically benefited the United States. America is supposed to be the low-tax country globally, and now we are ratcheting up our taxes to the levels commonplace in Europe. When Trump cut our tax rates, more than $1 trillion, much of it from socialist Europe, flowed into the U.S., financing new jobs and new enterprises. Now Biden wants a U.S. rate that matches that of Europe and exceeds that of China.
No. 3: Biden agreed to a “tax on tech” that will allow the Europeans and other international competitors to the U.S. to extract tens of billions of tax dollars every year from iconic American tech leaders such as Amazon, Apple, Google, Microsoft and Facebook. Meanwhile, as The Wall Street Journal has pointed out, the Europeans continue to lobby to ensure that their large companies are exempt from these international taxes. What kind of president sells his own nation’s companies down the river?
Don’t be surprised if the Biden administration tells the Germans, the French and the Italians that they can forget about those Trump demands that Europe pay more for their own defense at future NATO meetings. Uncle Sam is happy to keep picking up the tab.
Trump promoted American values and relentlessly fought for American interests when meeting with G-7 leaders. He told the Europeans that if they want to get richer, they should be more like us. Now, we have a president who wants America to be more like them.
This isn’t leadership. It is a first step in surrendering America’s power, prosperity and sovereignty.
Stephen Moore is a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation and an economic consultant with FreedomWorks. He is the co-author of "Trumponomics: Inside the America First Plan to Revive the American Economy." To find out more about Stephen Moore and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.
