30 May, 2017
German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Sunday said that her nation could no longer "completely depend" on the U.S.as a reliable partner.
"Anyone who accelerates climate change by weakening environmental protection, who sells more weapons in conflict zones and who does not want to politically resolve religious conflicts is putting peace in Europe at risk..."
A former US envoy to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) believes that USA relations with Europe have soured following President Donald Trump's trip to the Group of Seven (G7) summit.
Speaking with The New York Times, Daalder assessed that Trump's "America First" approach inherently places self-interest above the broader concerns of the world.
Trump also declined to voice whether his administration would commit to the Paris Climate Agreement, the worldwide pact to combat climate change. Previously Trump sarcastically criticized the agreement.
At a ceremony to celebrate North Atlantic Treaty Organisation member nations' strength after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Mr Trump said Germany was "bad, very bad" for its trade surplus and told off the 28 countries for "not paying what they should be paying".
President Trump during his trip to Saudi Arabia.
Most disturbingly for allies, Trump did not personally affirm his commitment to Article 5, NATO's mutual defense doctrine, after pre-trip signals from the White House that he would do just that. Given the reference to the "deep state" and the prevalence of war/fight rhetoric in the quotes given to Axios ("We're getting street fighters ready to go") plus the fact that they ran a softball piece today on Steve Bannon returning to prominence in Trump's inner circle, I'm guessing that the "war room" stuff is mainly coming from Bannon and his allies.
Beyond the rhetoric, Trump's body language also confounded his hosts.
The macho posturing in Europe contrasted to the images, a few days earlier, of Trump and his team swaying, swords in hand, with the absolute rulers of Saudi Arabia at a lavish welcome ceremony given by King Salman.
"Just returned from Europe", Trump tweeted out. In Brussels, various other parties also lead the meeting.
"The president was able to make some of the most unbelievable deals that have really been made by any administration ever", enthused his economic adviser Gary Cohn.
Daniela Schwarzer, research director at the German Council of Foreign Relations in Berlin, said the trip had confirmed Trump's "zero-sum game" view of the world in which you are either a victor or a loser and relationships are transactional.
The remarks, made at a packed beer hall rally in Munich hours after Trump returned to U.S. - and just before she welcomed Modi on his European tour - has stunned American pundits long steeped in the United States' Atlanticist loyalties arising from victory in World War Two.
