In the eyes of Donald Trump and his fawning Russian/Right Wing press, his first overseas trip was a home run. Speaking to the troops at a U.S. naval air station in Italy, Trump said this:
“. . .we have been gone for close to nine days. This will be nine days. And I think we hit a home run no matter where we are . . .”
But that’s not the way the Europeans saw it. I live in Sweden and people here shared Angela Merkel’s stunned realization that Trump has changed the United States into something unrecognizable.
The news was everywhere. The Swedish tabloid Aftonbladet used a two-page headline to capture Merkel’s evalution of Trump’s America: “We Can Not Trust the USA”.
And in the article:
Merkels hårda dom efter toppmötet med Trump: Tiderna ändras.
English: Merkel’s hard judgement after top meeting with Trump: Times change.
They also translated her using a tougher tone than what US papers carried:
“Tiderna då vi helt och hållet kunde förlita oss på andra är på väg bort”
English: The time when we could completely rely on others is on the way out.
The former Swedish Prime Minister/Foreign Minister Carl Bildt Tweeted this cryptic but telling remark:
After three days with Trump, Merkel draws key conclusions for Europe. This will be talked about. Much.
This is big. The international order established by the U.S. and its European allies after World War II has been cracked apart by President Trump’s bull in a china shop act. Angela Merkel is saying it can’t be fixed and Europeans shouldn’t even try. Carl Bildt, an establishment Conservative, labels her comments: “key conclusions”.
The left sees it the same way. Aftonbladet is a left-of-center tabloid with a daily readership of 3.5 million, one-third of Sweden. It’s got a big reach and Aftonbladet was scathing in their editorial comments. And just to make sure everyone gets the point, they splashed the front page with a story about the need for the Nordic countries to form a military alliance to stand against Putin, since the US can’t be trusted.
It’s impossible to overstate the signficance of Trump’s refusal to reaffirm Article 5 of the NATO Treaty, which says that an attack against one is an attack against all.
Aftonbladet columnist Wolfgang Hansson called Trump’s foreign trip, “A sniper-shot against NATO and the climate agreement coupled with a benevolent attitude toward authoritarian leaders, including Putin.”
Sweden is not in NATO, but it nonetheless benefits from the alliance’s military umbrella, especially since two key neighbors, Norway and Denmark, are in NATO. Sweden also participates in joint NATO exercises and is an important intelligence-sharing partner with the U.S.
For the first time there is a discussion here about a defense posture that does not include America in the picture. An analysis of comparative military strength between Russia and the Nordic countries led with the banner: “Ensamma är vi ganska svaga”.
English translation: “Alone, we are rather weak”.
I think Americans will discover that the same principle applies to the United States. Trump’s “America First” really means “America Alone”. Tell me again how that makes the U.S. strong?
The mainstream European view — left and right — is that Trump’s home run was an own-goal (to use a soccer metaphor).
How does America benefit from sacrificing NATO and insulting European allies while simultaneously forging a new security pact with middle-east dictators? (By the way, Trump’s new alliance puts the U.S. smack in the middle of a thousand-year old Sunni-Shia religious conflict).
There is one place in Europe, however, that thinks Trump hit a home run. The Russian propaganda news service, Sputnik International had this very rosy view of the Trump trip:
Between May 20 and May 27, [Trump] paid visit to a number of Middle Eastern countries and attended NATO and G7 summits, where he showed himself to be a skillful negotiator, according to Russian expert Andrey Sidorov.
"This trip was very successful, both from the external and internal policy points of view. Trump, as he earlier promised, showed himself to be an experienced negotiator who knows how to bargain," Sidorov said.
Touching upon Washington's ties with the EU and NATO, Sidorov said that "in Europe, Trump showed who is the real master of NATO and who determines the alliance's policy" by achieving the consent of NATO members to increase defense spending on the organization.
So the Russians now see Trump as the “real master of NATO”. To them, his bashing of European defense spending levels was just a proxy fight for something more important: “who determines the alliance’s policy”. Hmmm. Sounds like a win for #TeamPutin.
Now for the $64,000 Question: Why is the Republican Party leadership enabling a President who so clearly advances Russian interests?
I don’t have the answer, so I want to provoke you, the reader, to think hard and come up with one for yourself. First consider what Evan McMullin says — he is a conservative #NeverTrump Republican who is deeply bothered by Trump’s behavior. Here’s his tweet:
We already have all the evidence we need that to see that Russia worked to elect Trump, and Trump is returning the favor by weakening American alliances, specifically NATO. McMullin is right, this is right out in the open. Only an idiot or a traitor would call it #FakeNews.
Why does the Republican Party act like their country is Russia and their real President is Vladimir Putin?
It’s time to hold them to account.