As published in Berliner Zeitung. The dismantling of German industry since 2022 is collateral damage in America’s geopolitical war to isolate China, Russia and allied countries whose rising prosperity and self-sufficiency is viewed as an unacceptable challenge to U.S. hegemony. To prepare for what promises to be a long and costly fight, U.S. strategists made a pre-emptive move in 2022 to turn Europe away from its trade and investment relations with Russia. In effect, they asked Germany to commit industrial suicide and become a U.S. dependency. That made Germany the first and most immediate target in America’s New Cold War. Upon taking office in January 2021, Joe Biden and his national-security staff declared China to be America’s number one enemy, viewing its economic success as an existential threat to U.S. hegemony. To ...
