USA: European and many other countries around the world now giving the middle finger to the US

Read more at:
https://www.politico.eu/article/french-paper-gives-trump-the-middle-finge

The Netherlands: Trump's Muslim ban casts shadow over Dutch PM's visit to U.S. - by Janene Pieters

Prime Minister Mark Rutte is visiting the United States and meeting with Donald Trump on Monday. Rutte plans to announce that the Netherlands will again negotiate establishing American customs personnel at Schiphol. But the D66 fears that Trump's so-called Muslim ban will mean that American customs officers will deny Muslims access to the U.S. on Dutch soil, AD reports.

Coalition party D66 is therefore calling on Rutte to under no circumstances take steps that could make the Netherlands complicit in this entry ban. D66 parliamentarian Sjoerd Sjoerdsma calls the entry ban discriminatory and against the core values of the Netherlands and the Dutch constitution. "Enforcing the Muslim ban on Dutch soil is too crazy for words", Sjoerdsma said, according to the newspaper. "I now expect the government to reflect again and to not take any irreversible steps in this area."

For BBC report on actual visit click here. 

Read more: Trump's Muslim ban casts shadow over Dutch PM's visit to U.S. | NL Times

G7-Trump creates Chaos at G7 - as he calls for total barrier-free trade within the G7 and a return of Russia to the group

G7 Chaos: Merkel and Trump staring each other down

Despite imposing tariffs on major US allies, the anti-globalist president has called for free trade within the G7. He also insisted US allies would be forced to concede to US trade terms because the US "can't lose."

Trump, who railed against globalization in his election campaign, said he wanted all G7 nations to remove any tariffs, subsidies and other trade barriers.\

"You go tariff-free, you go barrier-free, you go subsidy-free," Trump opined, calling it "the ultimate thing." He said other world leaders reacted positively to the idea.

His economic adviser Larry Kudlow backed up the call, saying, "We’re going to clean up the international trade system."

But Trump's claims that he is in favor of global free trade would appear contradictory to his recent imposition of tariffs on US allies, much to their collective discontent.

Trump insisted US allies would yield to his demands of a trade rebalance, warning that the US would crush any opposition in a potential trade war.

"If they retaliate they're making a mistake …We win that war 1,000 times out of 1,000."

"They do so much more business with us than we do with them that we can't lose … When you’re down $375 billion you can't lose," he said, likely referring to the trade imbalance with China.

He said he could tell from the smiles of European leaders at the G7 that they knew that "the gig is up" and that they would negotiate terms with Washington.

Trump repeated his call for Russia to be allowed back into the alliance of world powers. It was kicked out of the G8 in 2014 for annexing Crimea from Ukraine.

"We're looking for peace in the world. We're not looking to play games."

"I think it would be good for Russia, I think it would be good for the US, I think it would be good for all of the countries of the current G7."

But when asked about returning to the G7 Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Saturday that Moscow "never asked anyone to return" to the G7 and that Russia was happy working with the G20.
 
EU-Digest