IMAGENS DE OVOODOCORVO
Trump’s relationship with Europe goes from bad to
nothingness
Top diplomatic vacancies and transatlantic tensions
leave European Union leaders looking to November’s election.
By DAVID M.
HERSZENHORN
06/03/2020
10:14 PM EDT
Updated:
06/03/2020 10:43 PM EDT
With five
months to go until the U.S. election, transatlantic relations are at a new low
— just as many experts say cooperation has never been more crucial.
At the
start of his presidency, Donald Trump regarded Europe as an afterthought. Now,
there seems little left to the relationship but a bitter aftertaste for EU
leaders who spent three years trying and failing to coax and cajole the
combustible American into buying into the Western alliance.
They no longer have any illusion that Trump is going
to change. The only question left is: Will he win in November?
After
German Chancellor Angela Merkel demurred from attending the in-person G-7
summit later this month, citing the continuing health risk of the coronavirus,
Trump lashed out, deriding the club of economic powers "outdated" —
just as he branded NATO "obsolete" at the start of his term. Trump
also voiced yet again his wish for Russia, which was kicked out of the G-8 over
its invasion and annexation of Crimea in 2014, to rejoin the group. The U.K.,
Canada and the EU swiftly rejected the idea, further underscoring the deep
split among Western powers.
Max
Bergmann, a senior fellow and expert on transatlantic relations at the Center
for American Progress, a Washington think tank known for its liberal views,
said there was no mistaking the Europeans' message.
“The
indication from Merkel that she is not going to attend the G-whatever Trump is
proposing,” Bergmann said. “That’s really her saying: ‘We’ll either see you on
the other side of the election or, hopefully, we won’t see you at all.’”
Trump began
his tenure in the White House with the most important diplomatic posts in
Europe held by fill-ins. That is again the case, with the envoy to Belgium
working double duty as the the acting representative to the EU, and, as of
Tuesday, the deputy chief of mission running the embassy in Berlin.
Neither job
is expected to get a permanent replacement before next year.
“This
administration has never really sought to engage Europe, and it’s sort of
dropping the pretense that it’s going to at all, in what could be its final
year,” Bergmann said.
In early
December, leaders were thrilled to survive a NATO summit in the U.K. without
any Trump-instigated disaster. British Tories, who were in the middle of a
general election campaign, were particularly relieved for the relatively
uneventful visit.
European
leaders thought the relationship was bad, but at least had stabilized. Amid the
coronavirus crisis, however, there's no question things have gotten worse.
There were
charges from Germany that Trump had tried to buy a biomedical firm working to
develop a vaccine. The U.S. denied the allegations, but fears of a vaccine war
persist, especially because of Trump's refusal to participate in an EU-led
pledging campaign to raise money for the coronavirus response.
Facing
fierce criticism for his own mismanagement of the pandemic in the U.S., Trump
lashed out at China and at the World Health Organization, and last week finally
declared he would sever ties with the U.N. health agency.
In Brussels and other EU capitals, recent events have
only confirmed the genuineness of Trump’s instincts regarding transatlantic
relations: to treat America’s closest historic allies as punching bags, to be
kicked at in the rare moments when they aren’t totally forgotten in a dark corner
of the basement of his brain.
Meanwhile,
Trump’s calls for stronger crackdowns and the militarized response to many
street protests across the U.S., including the arrests of journalists and use
of tear gas on unarmed demonstrators, have heightened fears in Europe that
there is something deeply broken in U.S. society that even replacing Trump
might not fix.
The German
foreign minister, Heiko Maas, was among the European leaders to condemn the
violence in the U.S. and call for restraint and respect for the rule of law.
On Tuesday,
Maas called the protests in the U.S. “legitimate,” said he hoped they would
remain peaceful and would yield change, and urged protections for journalists.
On Wednesday, he followed up with a message clearly aimed at the White House.
“Democrats must never escalate — not even through words,” he tweeted.
“Threatening violence only triggers further violence.”
While the
street clashes have raised new worries about where America is headed, it is the
far more mundane issue of diplomatic appointments that has sent Europeans an
unequivocal message about how transatlantic relations don't rank as a priority.
It was not
until July 2018, nearly a year and a half into Trump’s term, that the U.S.
finally had an ambassador to the EU. Gordon Sondland, a longtime Republican
Party fundraiser and hotel developer from Seattle, lasted little more than
another year and a half before he was fired in what was widely viewed as
retribution for his testimony to Congress during the impeachment investigation.
On May 1,
nearly three months after dismissing Sondland, the White House quietly gave
Ronald Gidwitz, the U.S. ambassador to Belgium, a second job: acting
representative to the EU. Officials said his elevation, as a political appointee
of Trump, reflected the importance of the job to the White House.
Like
Sondland, Gidwitz is a Republican money-man who led fundraising for Trump’s
campaign in Illinois, where he was long active in civic life, including as
chairman of the state board of education, and head of the community college
system in Chicago under a Democratic mayor. In 2006, he ran for the Republican
nomination for governor, finishing fourth.
Like Trump,
Gidwitz inherited a business from his father, a beauty supply company called
Helene Curtis Industries that was acquired by Unilever, the multinational
conglomerate, in 1996. But Gidwitz may have less in common with Trump than with
the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, whose family business, Kushner Cos.,
owns thousands of rental apartments and has been accused of providing
substandard housing to lower-income tenants.
Gidwitz and
his family owned an interest in a low-income housing complex in Joliet,
Illinois, where rents were subsidized by the U.S. federal government, but where
residents and local politicians, including then-Sen. Barack Obama, had
complained about “inhumane” conditions at the apartment complex, including a
persistent stench of urine.
The Chicago
Tribune reported that Gidwitz, during a court proceeding in 2017, acknowledged
an array of security lapses.
In 2014,
Gidwitz and his family lost a decade-long legal battle in which the city of
Joliet had sought control of the property. But the saga did not end there.
Gidwitz’s own lawyers sued him for not paying his bills, eventually winning a
$5.7 million judgment. Gidwitz has said that the lawsuit was intended to
pressure him and other owners to relinquish the property at a time when he was
running for governor.
Gidwitz
declined to comment on the record for this article. But people who have met him
in Brussels say he believes the EU and U.S. share core interests and goals,
even if they disagree on particular methods, such as the Iran nuclear
agreement.
EU
officials declined to comment on Gidwitz, citing protocol.
While
Sondland was forced out, the other most prominent U.S. diplomat in Europe — the
ambassador to Germany, Ric Grenell — left voluntarily. Grenell returned to
Washington earlier this year to serve as Trump’s acting director of national
intelligence, while retaining his ambassador post. But on Tuesday, his
resignation became official and Robin Quinville, a career foreign service
officer, took over as chargé d'affaires.
Grenell, an
aggressive supporter of Trump’s policies, at times stirred controversy in
Germany, including by saying he hoped to “empower other conservatives
throughout Europe” and by harshly criticizing Berlin over its defense spending,
the NordStream 2 gas pipeline project, which Trump opposes, and the Iran
nuclear deal, among other issues.
Bergmann,
of the Center for American Progress, said that while some German officials
might be glad to see Grenell leave, the overall message is not a good one for
the EU.
“In Berlin
it’s a sigh of relief, I don’t think there is any eagerness for a new
Trump-appointed ambassador,” he said. But he added: “Not having an ambassador
to Germany, having a dual-hatted acting ambassador to the EU, just shows the
administration's view of Europe. It doesn’t value Europe as a partner the way
it should, and that’s just reflected in these appointments.”
The State
Department has insisted that relations with Europe remain strong, and that
close cooperation with the EU continues quietly behind the scenes.
In a press
release last month, the State Department described weekly phone calls that it
said were being led by Deputy Secretary of State Stephen E. Biegun, and that
also include the European Commission.
“These
calls have allowed the United States and our Transatlantic Allies and partners
to share ideas and best practices in responding to the unique and complex
challenges presented by the global pandemic and plan for safely reopening our
economies and commerce,” the State Department said.
An EU
official confirmed that the calls have been taking place and described them as
positive. “The EU and U.S. are essential partners not only in the coronavirus
context, but our partnership goes far beyond that,” the official said.
But other
officials said that overall the pandemic has exposed more fissures in the
relationship with the U.S., including when Trump announced a travel ban on
March 11 with no notice or consultation.
That move
unleashed chaos at European airports, and experts now say it likely contributed
to the spread of coronavirus as U.S. citizens infected with COVID-19 boarded
planes and stood in queues in crowded airports as they raced home for fear of
being stranded overseas.
Even with
the world facing a pandemic, Trump has continued to find ways to undermine the
international order, such as by pulling out of the Open Skies Treaty.
Meanwhile,
old disagreements persist. EU leaders also have little hope that outstanding
trade disputes will be resolved before the November election. European
Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, in fact, has not visited Washington
since taking office on December 1.
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