Trans-Atlantic ties face Trump threat

Quietly hitting back at the US for its claims of Europe ‘decaying’ and its leaders ‘weak, the EU indefinitely froze $246 billion of Russian assets held by it.

- HARSHA KAKAR

This offset President Donald Trump’s Ukraine peace plan and prevented Hungary and Slovakia, nations close to Russia, from vetoing further rolling of the freeze. This decision has angered Moscow and Washington.The recently released US National Security Strategy (NSS) had mentioned, “We want to support our allies in preserving the freedom and security of Europe, while restoring Europe’s civilizational self-confidence and Western identity.” Moving further, it blamed the EU for “undermining political liberty, sovereignty, migration policies, censorship, suppression of political opposition, loss of national identities and self-confidence,” adding that “the continent will be unrecognizable in 20 years or less.”

This was not the end of the tirade. In an interview to The Politico, shortly after release of the NSS, Trump lambasted European leaders by stating, “I think they're weak,” adding, “But I also think they want to be so politically correct. I think they don’t know what to do. Europe doesn’t know what to do.”

The President of the European Council, Antonio Costa, responded by stating, “Allies do not threaten to interfere in domestic political choices of their allies.” He believes that the US and EU do not have similar views on the international order. Others generally ignored the comments. Trump is so caught up in his MAGA (Make America Great Again) campaign that he believes that he alone can ‘Make Europe Great Again’ His assumption is that Europe is unlikely to increase its defence spending to 5 per cent of its GDP by 2035, of which 3.5 per cent would go towards military capabilities and the balance towards cyber and infrastructure. Spain was the first to turn down this demand. In retaliation, Trump threatened Spain with additional tariffs and expelling it from NATO.