As evidenced by the actions of the sitting American president Donald Trump, the whole system of international relations is getting revamped by Washington, and the Western world is going to take a major hit in the process. Among the reasons why this is happening one can mention the failure of the Western world to satisfy Washington’s rapidly growing appetite. All this has resulted in Donald Trump trying to ensure that he forces as many concessions out of the European Union and other European bodies.
However, what is by the most disturbing development of recent years is the fact that the US has come to a conclusion that it doesn’t need a united Europe anymore, as it wants it scattered and fighting, La Repubblica notes in one of its publications. Therefore, Trump came up with a cunning plan on turning the EU into a new Iraq.
Washington’s desire to destroy Europe has long been ripe in the White House. Back in January 2017, the British newspaper The Independent suspected Ted Malloch, whom Trump was pushing hard for the post of US ambassador of the desire to destroy the European Community.
For sure, such changes do not occur overnight, as European were suspecting something for a while now, especially after the scandal with Ted Malloch that Donald Trump wanted to assume the position of American ambassador to the EU. When asked about his natural dislike towards Brussels and the desire to still take this post by one of the British media sources, he boldly replied:
I had in a previous career a diplomatic post where I helped bring down the Soviet Union. So maybe there’s another union that needs a little taming.
In the same interview Malloch added that Trump has a natural dislike for multi-national communities, as those are riddled with bureaucratic procedures and they are not a real democracy.
It’s curious that one won’t have a hard time if he decides to search for clues that Trump wants the EU down and out. For instance, the Washington Post would report that during a private meeting at the White House between Trump and French president Emmanuel Macron the senior US official demanded the latter why Paris wouldn’t leave the EU, when Washington could offer it a better bilateral trade deal with better terms than those it has within the union.
Through his actions, Trump has been actively trying to play EU member states against each other by exploiting their contradictions. Among these one can name the US withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), JCPOA, along with Washington’s introduction of heavier import duties on steel and aluminum. It’s clear that different European players haven’t been affected equally by those duties, and Washington would love to see individual states expressing their frustration over the trade war Washington has been waging against them instead of facing a pan-European response.
These days, as the EU is facing unprecedented challenges the union is in its most vulnerable state. The driving engines of the whole family of nations, namely Germany and France are unable to pull the lagging countries out of the economic ditch. In addition, there is the problem of migrants. There’s a lot of circumstances point to the fact that this crisis was provoked deliberately by the United States and its leading actors, namely George Soros.
And how could the EU ever aspire to become a competitive player on the international stage if it carries on getting involved in conflicts following Washington’s demands, even when none of the member states can benefit from this, as this was the case with Ukraine. But the United States wants to keep Brussels busy and concerned over a long list of problems it didn’t create, that is in a weak position. And the EU will continue to be weak, full of internal contradictions, if successive crises will not allow the union to ever strengthen. On top of individual players stirring up trouble within the union, Washington is assisted by yet another actor – the United Kingdom, which would play the role of a trouble maker within the EU that initiated Brexit to trigger the collapse of the whole union.
It is necessary to remember that Trump would often criticize Teresa May for her her insufficiently tough posture on Brexit, as the British prime minister wants to leave the EU, while preserve all of the preferences it enjoyed. At the same time the sitting US president would speak highly of Boris Johnson for his uncompromising position on the UK withdrawal from the EU, while describing him as a “very talented guy.” Moreover, Trump said that May should sue the EU (whatever that should mean) instead of negotiating with Brussels. But there’s nothing out of place in such remarks, if Trump on the eve of his summit with Vladimir Putin in Helsinki said that the EU is as much of an opponent of Washington as Russia and North Korea!
That is why Washington tries to stir arguments within the EU along religious, ethnic and national lines. For instance, it was behind the split within the Orthodox Church that started in Ukraine and has now reached the island of Crete and other European states, where the Orthodox Church still occupies leading positions.
Poland has recently yet another player in Washington’s pro-collapse team. Warsaw believes the concept put forward by Jozef Pilsudski who is reverted in Poland as a national hero to be extremely appealing. This concept implies the creation of Intermarium, a federation of Central and Eastern European countries, connected by common values and allied relations. Moreover, this pre-WWI project had and still has strong anti-Russian implications. The victory of the Law and Justice Party in Poland, that transformed a pro-Washington candidate Andrzej Duda in the leader of the Polish state resulted in the revival of the Intermarium concept. Aside from a long list of troubles that this project is going to create for Moscow, today’s policies of Warsaw are aimed at weakening the influence of Germany within the EU, in spite of the fact that it remains one of the major pillars of the whole union.
Warsaw chose to go as anti-European as it could by tying its strategic interests with the Trump administration, seeking ways to obtain as many American bases in its territory as it could. However, American policies shift drastically with ever new administration taking the office, which may result in Warsaw feeling sorry for betting hard on Trump, notes the Gazeta Wyborcza in one of its publications.
For the United States, the possible collapse of the EU offers a great many advantages. In particular, the restoration of its trade balance with European countries, as the overall overall trade deficit reached 147 billion dollars back in 2016, along a chance to seize entire segments of the European market. The collapse of the EU will also mean that Washington has prevented formation of a pan-European defense alliance that will mark a decline in the role of NATO and the profits of the American weapons manufacturers. Following this logic, in the near future, Trump will only increase the pressure on the EU, seeking ways to submit the continent to its will. And this is nothing short of a war, as he’s willing to get guns talking if that is what it takes to secure an imminent collapse of the EU.
Grete Mautner is an independent researcher and journalist from Germany, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook.”