<
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/mar/31/donald-trump-europe-trade-war-greenland>
"The “Signalgate” scandal confirmed what Europeans already knew. The Trump
administration’s disdain for Europe is deep and the transatlantic fracture is
structural. While our leaders publicly play down the significance of the
unravelling that is manifestly under way, few actually sound as convinced in
private.
Hopes persist that Europe can prevent the most extreme manifestation of the
collapse in the relationship, be it an invasion of Greenland, the withdrawal of
US forces from Europe’s Nato member states or an all-out trade war. Most
urgently, European leaders are focused on ensuring that if (or perhaps when)
the US throws Kyiv under the bus, it is Europe collectively that will somehow
succeed in securing a free, independent and democratic Ukraine. But there
should be no illusion that this will happen by working in synergy with
Washington or even with its tacit approval.
Signalgate was both unsurprising and shocking. It was unsurprising because the
personal animosity towards European countries on display in the US national
security team’s supposedly confidential group chat is not very different to
what administration officials have said publicly. Think of JD Vance at the
Munich Security Conference in February, the US special envoy Steve Witkoff, in
his interview with Tucker Carlson, or Donald Trump himself in his ceaseless
declarations and social media posts. There is remarkable consistency between
the private and public pronouncements: Washington considers Europe to be
obsolete, arrogant and parasitic.
What is shocking, nevertheless, is that the US does not just view Europe as
moribund. Trump’s officials seem to want to contribute to its death. Regardless
of what one thinks of the Houthi threat in the Red Sea, it is US policy that
attacking the pro-Iranian militia is in its national security interest. But as
Vance and Pete Hegseth made clear on the group chat, the US also thinks that
attacking the Houthis would benefit Europeans, and this is reason enough to
question any attack. Helping Europeans, in other words, is seen as such a
downside it could outweigh the direct upside for the US itself of dealing with
a perceived threat. It is the visceral hatred of Europeans contained within
this twisted train of thought that is shocking."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
