The Biden administration Friday announced that Washington — along with the European Union and the G7 — will move to revoke Russia’s “most favored nation” status as a trading partner. It’s a fine move but does zilch to help Ukraine in its hour of need.
MFN status with America is coveted across the world, since it allows basically free trade with a huge market. And revoking it is utterly reasonable, since Russian President Vladimir Putin has unquestionably revealed himself as an enemy of civilization.
But this won’t save a drop of Ukrainian blood. Putin simply doesn’t see economic blows as reason to abandon his war. The West has been ramping up sanctions from the start with zero impact on the autocrat’s determination to break and seize Ukraine — no matter the cost.
Heck, we’ve been hitting Russia with economic punishments over Ukraine since Putin invaded it to grab Crimea in 2014.
So blood-soaked Vlad will keep strangling Mariupolto death, shelling refugees and hospitals and moving to crush Kharkiv and encircle and level Kyiv.
What President Biden didn’t announce were new steps to blunt Putin’s advance, such as more weapons and a visibly beefed-up commitment to helping Ukraine’s own military effort.
Yes, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky asked for the MFN move, but he’d surely rather have other help — like those Polish MiGs that Biden personally denied the heroic resistance.
The MFN move is Biden again posing as resolute — which sends the opposite message. And doing it instead of letting Poland transfer the jets tells Putin that the West remains committed to the delusion that “soft power” can substitute for the real thing. He’s intent on proving otherwise, no matter how much innocent blood he has to wade through.
Devastated areas such as Mariupol, Ukraine, are in dire need of protection – and President Biden won’t send fighter jets. Armed Forces of Ukraine/Handout via REUTERSAnd there’s no logic in revoking Russia’s MFN status but not China’s. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has openly called Beijing’s campaign to isolate and exterminate the Uyghurs “genocide”; shouldn’t that be enough?
Teddy Roosevelt famously defined his preferred foreign policy as “Speak softly and carry a big stick.” The Biden White House is speaking as loudly as it can in this crisis — with very little stick. And all America’s enemies are noticing.
