E.U. leader lights into Trump: 'With friends like that, who needs enemies?'
BRUSSELS — Even by the stressed standards of relations between Europe and the United States in the Trump era, European Council President Donald Tusk’s Wednesday criticisms were unusually cutting.
At the outset of a summit of European leaders whose agenda items, point by point, have to do with the flames of crises that many Europeans see as ignited by President Trump, Tusk ripped into what he called “the capricious assertiveness of the American administration” over issues including Iran, Gaza, trade tariffs and North Korea.
In comments to reporters and a subsequent tweet, he suggested the White House had lost touch with reality. He said Europe didn’t need enemies when it had friends like the United States. And he exhorted European leaders not to be reliant on Washington.
Just 16 months ago, such comments would have been unimaginable coming from an E.U. leader, whose continent modeled itself on the U.S. image in the aftermath of World War II. But Europeans are increasingly exasperated by the way Trump is steering U.S. policy, objecting not only to his stances but also to what they say is erratic policymaking that switches on the whim of Fox News programmers. The shifting desires make it nearly impossible to negotiate with the White House, many diplomats say, because they cannot strike a bargain to get close to what Trump wants when he doesn’t know it himself.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2018/05/16/e-u-leader-lights-into-trump-with-friends-like-that-who-needs-enemies/
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