Mild in Mideast, Trump Is All Elbows in a Europe Eager to Jab Back
By MARK LANDLER and MICHAEL D. SHEAR MAY 26, 2017
TAORMINA, Sicily — “Trump shoves his allies,” read the front page of Belgium’s Le Soir. “Boor in chief” declared Germany’s financial newspaper Handelsblatt. An editorial in Le Monde called him “brutal and heavy-handed.”
President Trump is winning as many headlines in Europe as he did in the Middle East. But as he arrived in the beguiling seaside town of Taormina for a meeting of the Group of 7 countries on Friday, the smooth statesman celebrated in Saudi Arabia and Israel is now being portrayed as the ugly American, trampling America’s friends and trashing the trans-Atlantic alliance.
Whether it was lecturing NATO members for their inadequate contributions to the alliance, scolding Germany for its trade surplus with the United States, or pushing the leader of Montenegro out of his way at a photo shoot, Mr. Trump has switched from diplomat to disrupter.
It is a more familiar role for the president, one his aides say will pay dividends for the United States in the form of better trade deals and more equitable security arrangements. But critics say that his behavior overlooks the fact that America’s most durable alliances are in Europe, not the Middle East, and that Europeans are not likely to buy Mr. Trump’s bluster.
“Everybody sees that he’s trying to be a tough negotiator with the Europeans, whom he apparently views as a bunch of weaklings,” said Daniel Gros, the director of the Center for European Policy Studies, a think tank in Brussels. “But nobody sees any use in firing back. They think there will be very little action on trade. Ultimately, they think it’s harmless.”
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https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/26/world/europe/trump-europe-g7.html
