Verbatim report of proceedings

Wednesday, 13 September 2023 - Strasbourg

Opening of negotiations of an agreement with the United States of America on strengthening international supply chains of critical minerals (debate)

  Mick Wallace (The Left). – Mr President, why are we taking the Cold War logic and injecting it into everything? Each day we have stark reminders that the world is teetering on the brink of no return of irreversible climate catastrophe. The answer is global cooperation, but instead we’re digging down into camps and stoking conflict.

The US-China trade war we are steadily picking a side in. The endlessly expanding sanctions regime, the war in Ukraine, that we’re doing nothing to stop. The potential war with China that we’re doing nothing to prevent. There is no world where this trajectory does not lead to multiple global crises worse than anything humankind has ever seen.

The Biden administration keeps repeating that stoking conflict with China and climate action cooperation are compatible. It’s absolute nonsense! The tit-for-tat sanctions are getting out of control, and the EU – increasingly acting as a willing puppet of the US – is looking more and more like the collateral damage in the US game of imperialism.