A Transatlantic Rift?

Donald Trump isn’t the first president to make Europe’s leaders nervous, said Chris Cillizza on CNN.com.

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Recall how spooked they were by George W. Bush’s “cowboy” approach to foreign affairs. But at least Bush “never sought to undo the basic tenets of Nato or the G7”. Whereas Trump did just that on his first official trip to Europe last week, said Tom Peck in The Independent. He hectored his Nato allies for “chronically underfunding” Nato; looked set to pull out of the Paris climate change agreement; and called Germany “bad, very bad” for flooding the US market with its cars. Who can blame Angela Merkel for suggesting an era of transatlantic co-operation is coming to an end? “The era in which we could fully rely on others is over to some extent,” she said. “We Europeans truly have to take our fate into our own hands – in friendship, of course, with the US and Great Britain – but we must fight for our own future and destiny.”