Freddy Gray, Paul Wood and Kate Andrews discuss Trump’s arrival at the White House:
As president, Barack Obama was too cool for the special relationship. The romantic bond between the United States and Great Britain, which always makes Churchill fans go all soggy-eyed, left him cold. Obama was more interested in globalism, ‘pivoting’ to Asia and the European Union. Donald J. Trump is a very different creature. The new US President seems to cherish Great Britain, whereas the EU annoys him. Brexit is beautiful, he believes — and the EU is falling apart.
Trump may or may not know the name of the British Prime Minister but, as he told Michael Gove this week, he is determined to strike a free trade agreement with Britain ‘very quickly’. Trump deals in deals, and he wants to deal with us. As for Angela Merkel and the EU, they can either fall in with Trump’s new world order — or fall out with the world’s greatest superpower.
His attitude to Europe is nothing short of revolutionary. With a few words in Trump Tower, he seems to have torn up decades of US State Department policy. He doesn’t see much of a future in the whole EU project, effectively predicting its demise. ‘People want their own identity,’ he says, ‘so if you ask me, others, I believe others will leave.’ He believes in nation states, and he does not see the EU as representative of the continent. In fact, he says, it is ‘basically a vehicle for Germany’.
It’s hard to overstate the effect of these words on the EU, and its ambitions to be seen by Washington — and the world — as an economic and diplomatic counterweight to the United States. The whole project has always been nurtured with American backing: ever since the Marshall Plan, US policy has been to consolidate Europe’s strength and to promote what went on to become the European Union.
Comments
Join the debate for just £1 a month
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for £3.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just £1 a monthAlready a subscriber? Log in