'Donald Trump's administration, alongside China, Russia, terrorism and radical Islam is a threat to us' - European Union
In a letter sent to European leaders on Tuesday, Tusk wrote that factors such as
Trump's ban on immigration, increased friendliness with Vladmir Putin,
publicly blasting NATO and “worrying declarations by the new American
administration all make our future highly unpredictable.”
U.S
President Trump has at one point called NATO "obsolete," dismissed the
28-member EU as a "vehicle for Germany" and publicly said he's had "a
very bad experience" with the EU as a businessman.
Tusk wondered whether the United States would maintain its commitment to European security under Mr. Trump’s leadership.
“For
the first time in our history, in an increasingly multipolar external
world, so many are becoming openly anti-European, or Eurosceptic at
best,” Mr. Tusk wrote. The letter was released ahead of an E.U summit
meeting in Malta on Friday; and Tusk is responsible for setting the agenda for the meetings.
“Particularly
the change in Washington puts the European Union in a difficult
situation; with the new administration seeming to put into question the
last 70 years of American foreign policy,” he wrote.
“An
increasingly, let us call it, assertive China, especially on the seas,”
he wrote, “Russia’s aggressive policy toward Ukraine and its neighbors,
wars, terror and anarchy in the Middle East and in Africa, with radical
Islam playing a major role, as well as worrying declarations by the new
American administration all make our future highly unpredictable.”
"We
cannot surrender to those who want to weaken or invalidate the
Transatlantic bond, without which global order and peace cannot survive.
We should remind our American friends of their own motto: United we
stand, divided we fall."
Guntram B. Wolff,
director of Bruegel, a research organization in Brussels said the E.U
shouldn't enter into a war of words with the Trump administration.
“We
need to uphold our values here, but does it mean that we need now a
declaration where we put the United States on the same level as ISIS?”
“No, I don’t think so. I don’t think it that would be helpful in any way.”
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