2023-06-08 19:40:05
The US and UK have reiterated their long-term support for Ukraine. Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin believes the alliance is tiring and giving up, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said at a White House news conference on Thursday. “But that’s not the case (…) We’re not going anywhere.” You will be there for Ukraine as long as it is necessary.
US President Joe Biden said long-term support was also being sought to “deter future aggression”. Give Russia-attacked Ukraine what it needs on the battlefield now and help strengthen the military in the long term. He assumes that this support will actually be provided, even if there are some voices in the US Congress “debating whether we should continue to support Ukraine and how long we should support them”.
The USA and Great Britain also want to strengthen their cooperation in view of China’s economic and military aspirations. Biden and Sunak decided to work more closely together on the defense industry and on raw materials needed for the energy transition. They signed the “Atlantic Declaration” in Washington on Thursday, which Sunak described as the first economic partnership of its kind. Biden wants to ask Congress to grant Great Britain special status in arms deals. Both countries are also aiming for an agreement on rare earths for electric car batteries. This issue is also important in US-EU relations because last year Washington passed a law with massive subsidies for green technology.
“Britain and the US have always pushed the boundaries of what two countries can achieve together,” Sunak said on Thursday. “It is therefore only natural that, in the face of the greatest transformation in our economies since the Industrial Revolution, we look to one another to build a stronger economic future together.” The cooperation should also come into play on topics such as artificial intelligence. With AI, the security risks need to be addressed, Biden said. He spoke of the possibility of a fundamental technical change that was probably unique in human history. “It’s breathtaking,” he said at a joint press conference.
Sunak has urged strengthening UK-US trade ties. The Biden government had dashed prospects of a speedy free trade deal between the two longtime allies following Brexit. In addition, Sunak wants to gain US support for the plan to make Secretary of Defense Ben Wallace the new head of NATO. Biden has expressed reservations regarding a British successor to NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. You have to find a consensus within the defense alliance to achieve that, said the 80-year-old.
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