Friday, February 3, 2017

America First - and Only

François Hollande has led a series of damning attacks on Donald Trump by EU leaders arriving at a summit in Malta to discuss the future of the union.

The French president described recent comments by the US president as unacceptable and warned there would be no future for Europe’s relations with the US “if this future isn’t defined in common”.

[...]

Hollande was scornful of Trump’s first days in the Oval office, and warned him to stay out of the EU’s internal affairs. “It cannot be accepted that there is, through a certain number of statements by the president of the United States, pressure on what Europe ought to be or what it should not be,” he said.

[...]

Xavier Bettel, Luxembourg’s PM, said it was too soon to draw conclusions on Trump but his were “not the values I’m fighting for in politics”.

The European commission’s high representative, Federica Mogherini, said the EU did not “believe in walls and in bans”, and claimed the union would be a reference point for the world.

[...]

The European commissioner Günther Oettinger warned the EU not to allow Trump to divide them. “First of all, we must be careful not to accept his game,” Oettinger, a German, told Deutschlandfunk radio.

[...]

On Thursday the Guardian revealed that leaders of the parties in the European parliament were seeking to block the expected appointment of Ted Malloch as the US ambassador to the EU following his claim that he intended to “tame” the union.

[...]

The Austrian chancellor, Christian Kern, said Trump’s ban on travellers from some Muslim-majority countries was “highly problematic”.

Dalia Grybauskaitė, the Lithuanian president, offered a withering verdict on the recent meeting between Trump and Theresa May. “I don’t think there is a necessity for a bridge. We communicate with the Americans on Twitter,” she said.

  Guardian
Zing. Ouch.

Of course, Teresa May did not make any negative comments. She's probably thinking that when Britain exits the EU, they'll be fast buddies with America, like always.  She doesn't know Trump.  Unless she plans on kissing his fat ass daily.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

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