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Accounts like this are doubtlessly true but they miss the point. The problem is not Trump, it’s the US electorate. What Europeans fear is not so much Trump as willingness of US voters to keep elevating Trump like figures. A long-term, structural issue. nytimes.com/2019/02/17/wor…
Which is why “reassurances” from likes of Sen. Graham, VP Pence ring so hollow. Not only bc EUs know they don’t represent Trump’s views but bc they know large segments of US public neither care nor want trasatlanticism. Hence increasing shift to intra-EU security arrangements.
And of course Europe’s capacity to provide for its own security arrangements is limited. But no one in Berlin, Paris et al wants to be held ransom to the ill-informed whims of rural Ohio, Pennsylvania & the broader Fox News electorate. That’s the nub of the present crisis.
But the NYT piece is right about one thing: Russia & China will exploit this growing US/EU cleavage. My fear tho is that this exploitation will be far more radical & successful than many in the West are presently willing, or perhaps capable, of understanding. /xxx
