Beltway blobsters were on the edge of their seats Tuesday last week as Donald Trump went off-script from prepared remarks at the Rose Garden. “The EU was formed to take advantage of the U.S.,” he asserted amidst a markedly Trumpian tour d’horizon that included attacks on Joe Biden and blows at China for cheating on trade and the WHO. “I know that. They know I know that, but other presidents had no idea,” he added. Needless to say, “take advantage” is the sentence’s climax, but “formed” is its novel keyword.
A textbook case in Trumpian teleology, purpose and outcome are confounded in this latest boutade. Penalizing America is—to the blob’s great dismay—the unquestionable effect of a number of EU policies, but a cursory look at the bloc’s history shows this has hardly ever been its raison d’être. To his credit, the president’s hardball deal-making antics on trade and defense spending through his first term have itched the transatlantic alliance towards fairer territory in a way that the blob’s sanguine piety never could have. Precisely to preserve this success, the President would be better advised to stay focused on rebalancing EU-U.S. ties instead of cooking up senseless conspiracies that risk making his negotiations with the Europeans harder than they are already poised to be ahead of a potential second term. In a nutshell—more Trump, less conspiracy.
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