The U.N.’s migration agency has rejected the Trump administration’s proposed candidate to head the body, a post previously held by Americans since 1951.

Diplomats who took part in three rounds of voting Friday told the Associated Press that American Ken Isaacs was eliminated in the still-ongoing contest, now being led by Antonio Vitorino, a Portuguese Socialist, and the remaining candidate, IOM deputy director-general Laura Thompson of Costa Rica.

Senegalese diplomat Youssoupha Ndiaye, upon leaving the voting in Geneva, said: “the American is out.”

Isaacs’ candidacy had been clouded by U.S. policies like travel bans and migrant family separations — and his own comments that critics have called anti-Muslim.

Later in the day, the U.N.’s migration agency elected Portuguese Socialist Antonio Vitorino as its new leader.

Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, in London on Monday. He said in a letter to the heads of government of the European Union that “unfortunately the divisions go beyond trade” with the United States.CreditLeon Neal/Getty Images

BRUSSELS — Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, said on Wednesday that the policies of President Trump had put trans-Atlantic relations “under tremendous pressure” and that Europeans should prepare for darker times.

As a trade war looms between the United States and the European Union, with retaliation for American tariffs on steel and aluminum and threats of further tariffs on imported cars, Mr. Tusk said in a letter to the heads of government of the European Union that “unfortunately the divisions go beyond trade.”

Mr. Tusk, in his letter, took note of a rancorous meeting this month of the Group of 7 industrialized countries, when Mr. Trump mocked European leaders and criticized their trade policies and military spending.

“It is my belief that, while hoping for the best, we must be ready to prepare our Union for worst-case scenarios,” Mr. Tusk said.

Without calling out the American president by name, Mr. Tusk also criticized Mr. Trump and his immigration policies, using Twitter to denounce those who support “anti-European & anti-liberal” views.

European leaders have been openly critical of Mr. Trump at times, and Mr. Tusk’s letter echoed a sentiment he expressed last month, when he scolded the president on Twitter in sarcastic terms.

“Looking at latest decisions of @realDonaldTrump someone could even think: with friends like that who needs enemies,” he wrote. “But frankly, EU should be grateful. Thanks to him we got rid of all illusions. We realize that if you need a helping hand, you will find one at the end of your arm.”

He was not more specific in his letter on Wednesday, which focused on the agenda for the next summit meeting of European leaders, scheduled for Thursday and Friday. Much of their attention will be taken up by a new political crisis over migration and efforts to shore up the backstop for the euro currency.

But European leaders whose countries are members of the NATO alliance are also deeply concerned about how Mr. Trump may act during their two-day summit meeting on July 11-12, fearing the consequences of a divisive meeting just days before the president is expected to hold talks with the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin.

The original measure, which included restrictions on speech about the country’s role under Nazi occupation, had angered the U.S.
by Leonid Bershidsky
Poland’s nationalist government is learning on the fly how to sidle up to U.S. President Donald Trump while trying to minimize friction with the European Union.

On Wednesday, the Parliament, dominated by the nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party, amended a law passed in February that called for up to three years’ imprisonment for anyone who would “ascribe to the Polish people or the Polish state the responsibility or joint responsibility for the Nazi crimes committed by the Third Reich.” The amended version knocks down the penalty for speaking or writing of “Polish death camps” to a fine, and even that likely wouldn’t be applied.

The statute of the Institute of National Remembrance didn’t just alarm Polish Jews, whose history include episodes of both Polish chivalry and Polish brutality during World War II. It caused a public spat with Israel. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the Polish government that “One cannot change history and the Holocaust cannot be denied.” The U.S. Jewish community was up in arms, too.

Poland’s prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, hadn’t expected the backlash. In February, he told me it was an unfortunate coincidence that the original law was passed on the 73rd anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. But the PiS didn’t immediately withdraw the threat of imprisonment, arguing that it would be an effective deterrent to mentions of “Polish death camps” that have long irritated the government. The law, however, wasn’t immediately enforced: President Andrzej Duda referred it to the constitutional court.

We should have voted for John Candy...