Since U.S. President Donald Trump took office just over a year ago,
America’s relationship with the European Union has been little more than
an afterthought. That shouldn’t be surprising. Trump’s views toward the
EU have been consistently negative for years. During the presidential
campaign he made several disparaging remarks about the EU, including
that it was
created to “beat
the United States when it comes to making money.” He also openly
supported Brexit. Making matters worse, Trump has forged a close
relationship with Nigel Farage, the far-right, anti-immigration,
anti-establishment leader of the U.K. Independence Party who has served
as Trump’s tutor on the EU since late 2016. Despite Trump’s negatives
views of the EU, though, it wasn’t clear over the past year exactly how
those views would play out in terms of actual policies.
Until now. In recent days, Trump has launched a two-front war with the European Union.
At first, it appeared that the Trump administration’s policy toward the
EU would simply be one of benign neglect. The president has yet to
appoint an ambassador to the EU, and there are no signs that anyone at
the White House is in a rush to change that. The EU also barely secured
mentions in the various strategy documents the administration has been
rolling out in recent months. In the
National Security Strategy,
the U.S. relationship with the European Union is cited only once in the
context of “ensuring fair and reciprocal trade practices,” and
“eliminating barriers to growth.” Similarly, in his sole speech on
Europe, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson hardly mentioned the EU. In
fact, America’s multibillion-dollar trade relationship with the EU, long
the cornerstone of our relationship with Europe, doesn’t
appear anywhere in that speech.
But this week, Trump
announced he would place 25 percent tariffs on steel and 10 percent
tariffs on aluminum imports. The move wasn’t directed specifically at
Europe, as the United States imports steel and aluminum from several
countries around the world. But that didn’t ease the shock of European
policymakers who were stunned last Friday (like many of Trump’s own
advisors and Congress) when Trump first mentioned that he was going to
take actionable steps toward such a protectionist agenda.
Given the magnitude and importance of the United States’ trade
relationship with Europe, one would assume that the president would
create a special carve out for America’s closest allies. Trump made no
mention of such an arrangement for Europe although the White House will
create exemptions for Canada and Mexico.
EU officials are furious and have threatened retaliation through
their own set of import tariffs. That obviously hasn’t sat well with the
President who
tweeted
just days ago: “If the E.U. wants to further increase their already
massive tariffs and barriers on U.S. companies doing business there, we
will simply apply a tax on their cars which freely pour into the U.S.”
Many are now predicting that the United States is on the verge of
starting a trade war with Europe — and they might be right.
Unfortunately, trade isn’t the only area where the Trump
administration is directly challenging the EU. The president and his
advisors have also decided to take a hostile stance toward recent
EU efforts
to strengthen defense cooperation and integration across the Continent.
This is an odd reaction given that over that past year Trump’s main
criticism of Europe is that it shirks defense spending and
burden-sharing.
To be sure, the United States has admittedly had a long,
complicated past with European defense. Ever since Tony Blair and
Jacques Chirac signed the Saint-Malo declaration in 1998, which
recognized the need for Europe to develop autonomous, credible military
forces, American presidents from Clinton to Bush to Obama have warned
about unnecessary duplication with the NATO alliance.
But over time, even the strongest EU skeptics have come to realize
two things. First, EU ambitions aren’t that great. Europeans aren’t
trying to build an EU army. Second, to the extent that the EU makes
progress on strengthening its defense forces, those efforts will
ultimately benefit both the EU and NATO. That’s why the Trump
administration’s approach toward the EU is so counterintuitive and
counterproductive.
Whether it’s on trade policy or security policy, America needs a
strong, economically sound, and capable Europe with close ties to the
United States. Collectively, Europe and the United States face a litany
of common challenges from Russian efforts to undermine Western
democracies to instability across the Middle East to the need to prepare
for the post-manufacturing economy. To effectively address these
challenges, the United States and Europe need to act together. Doing so
becomes increasingly difficult when the two continents are engaged in a
trade war or when the Unite States pushes back on European efforts to
build the exact capabilities we claim they lack.
The Trump
administration needs an EU policy (and an ambassador to match) that can
strengthen, not undermine, our relationship with Europe. It’s an
imperfect relationship but it’s the best one we’ve got
Note EU-Digest: the EU Commission and Parliament should, as the
saying goes, "stop crying over spilled milk", since they knew even
before the start of the US's Trump Administration, that Trump was not
only a Populist and Nationalist, who embraced the idea of Brexit, but
also on very friendly terms with many European populists, like Farage,
who he openly endorsed to become the British Ambassador to the US., and
the list goes on and on.
So given Trump's actions as the President of the US, at this point
in time, it is certainly not wise for the EU Commission, or for that
matter, most EU member states, to "snuggle-up" to the US's Trump
Administration, as it has now been proven beyond any doubt, that Trump
is only in favor of the EU, when he tells them to jump and the EU
responds with "how high Mr. Trump
Given the above sequence of events the EU must show some more
muscle in dealing with the US's Trump Administration and their policies,
orchestrated by a narcissist, who, if we like it or not was elected
President of the USA.
Read more: Trump’s War on Europe Is Revving Up – Foreign Policy
