The president’s speech is merely the culmination of many assaults on Europe. Trump has departed from six decades of bipartisan U.S. foreign policy that supported European integration because it has not only been good for Europe, but it has also been good for U.S. interests. When I served as U.S. ambassador to the European Union during President Barack Obama’s second term, I felt I was continuing that sensible policy.
As I describe in my forthcoming book, I was a witness to how the EU is a critical partner in many areas of regional and even global concern, including climate change, foreign aid and humanitarian assistance, sanctions, law enforcement, reforming the World Trade Organization, and forcing China to play fair in world trade.
President Trump has ripped up the playbook, with extremely serious consequences for the United States, our allies and even the world. He has been a loud cheerleader for Brexit, even though it undoubtedly undermines many critical U.S. interests. It has been clearly useful to have the United Kingdom inside the EU tent because London has been so philosophically aligned with us on many issues. He has urged that the United Kingdom diverge from EU regulations, advice that Prime Minister Boris Johnson appears to welcome, even though many U.S. businesses have invested in the UK for decades on the assumption that it would remain aligned with EU regulations. He has promoted populist, nationalist, and euroskeptic parties in Europe, while embracing authoritarian countries all over the world.
President Trump holds views of the EU that are cartoon-strip caricatures: It is a dysfunctional organization, entirely dominated by Germany, that was set up only to beat the United States in trade. He hates the fact that the EU magnifies the influence of its smaller members, with whom he would rather deal bilaterally and transactionally in order to maximize U.S. leverage. |
