Seismic shift Policy paper lays bare Trump support for Europe's far right

The president of the European Council of national leaders, António Costa, has warned Donald Trump's administration against interfering in Europe's affairs, as analysts said the US national security strategy represented a seismic shift in transatlantic relations.

- Jon Henley

Released last Friday, the policy paper claims Europe faces "civilisational erasure" because of migration and a censorious EU "undermining political liberty and sovereignty". Confirming not just the Trump administration's hostility to Europe but its ambition to weaken the bloc, it says the US will "cultivate resistance" in the bloc to "correct its current trajectory".

Costa said the signal that Washington would back Europe's nationalist parties was unacceptable.

Speaking on Monday, he said there were longstanding differences with Trump on issues such as climate change, but the new strategy went "beyond that... What we cannot accept is the threat to interfere in European politics," he said.