Helsinki Summit: EU Concerned amid Strained Ties with US

EU-US relationship is reaching a new juncture, marking a new period in the history of the two traditional allies. US President Donald Trump, many analysts agree, is the key factor prompting this row.

Since the beginning of his presidential campaign, Trump raised the “American first” policy, challenging the form of the US economic and political relations with the rest of the world and calling for their revision— even those with Washington’s traditional allies. After assuming office at the White House on January 20, 2017, he staged efforts to realize his campaign-time promises. Europe fell at the center of an initial focus of Trump as the president called for Europe to pay more for its NATO share, arguing that the US shouldered a large part of the Western military organization’s budget. The trade with the European Union was another case of Trump protest.

Trump’s transformational policy in the relations with the EU gradually fueled tensions between his administration and the European powers. He several times asked the French and German leaders, both being the face of EU leadership, to increase their share in NATO spending. In the past three months, Trump announced tariffs on European and other trade partners’ goods, formally sparking a trade war. As the opposite sides took retaliatory measures, the chasms even deepened as a result.

While the trade war is raging and making the US-EU ties experience their worst days, Trump is scheduled to meet his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on July 16 in Helsinki, Finland. The expected meeting has drawn wide-range concerns among the NATO members who are under pressure to pay higher for the military bloc’s budget. Trump-Putin summit will be preceded by NATO meeting, set for July 11 and 12. So, the upcoming two weeks are crucially important to the US-EU relations. After all, as the tensions mount, another major player is coming to the circle, which their disputes with it once put the Europeans and the Americans in a unified camp, but it is now a factor for fragmentation of the trans-Atlantic alliance. Bringing in the spotlight the EU-US equations takes considering two issues, with the Russian factor also present in the analysis.

Wide division with EU. Major pressure on Berlin

The EU concerns about a possible agreement between Trump and Putin in their upcoming meeting stem from the bloc’s broadening split with Washington. Over the past few days, Trump several times criticized NATO members. He even threatened to pull the US out of the 29-member alliance. Last month, he asserted that the members not paying enough to NATO budget should be punished. A comment of him was critical of Berlin.

“If you look at NATO, where Germany pays 1 percent and we are paying 4.2 percent of a much bigger GDP – that's not fair," he said addressing a cabinet meeting.

Last week, the New York Times reported that Trump has reportedly sent sharply worded letters to several NATO member countries, urging them to spend more on their self-defense, in an escalation of the US president’s long-standing feud with the military alliance. The letter to the German Chancellor Angela Merkel must be deemed the most significant of all as she comes to the center of criticism.

“The United States continues to devote more resources to the defense of Europe when the Continent’s economy, including Germany’s, are doing well and security challenges abound. This is no longer sustainable for us,” Trump told Merkel, according to the New York Times.

In the meantime, National Security Advisor John Bolton made comments on the need for other member states to spend more on NATO.

“The president wants a strong NATO,” Bolton said in an interview on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “If you think Russia’s a threat, ask yourself this question: Why is Germany spending less than 1.2 percent of its G.N.P.? When people talk about undermining the NATO alliance, you should look at those who are carrying out steps that make NATO less effective militarily”, New York Times quoted him as saying.

The remarks by Trump’s top advisor show that the work to improve the Washington-Moscow ties comes as EU-US relations are struck by crisis. The gap is so deep that Trump will possibly strike even more fiery tone against Europe at the summit with the Russian leader.

The crisis has a point to make: The Europeans are coming up with the notion that they need to take themselves out of Washington’s protective umbrella. The European interests are now in a way that allow EU leaders to stand in the face of Trump and his demands. Even in the case of a Trump-Putin agreement, various European interests and even counter-demands will provide Europe’s powers, particularly Germany, with strength not to bow to Trump’s demands.

Using Moscow tactically to press EU

There is a theory analyzing the coincidence of Trump-Putin meeting with the peak of EU-US tensions. It suggests that Trump is exploiting Russia and the European fear surrounding a possible accord for closer ties with Moscow to force EU into submitting to his demands. White House seeks to tell the Europeans that Trump can strike a friendship deal with their rival, if not enemy, Russia, and their isolation from global events can ensue. North Korea denuclearization, a work of the US, China, and Russia, is a showcase of EU isolation from key global issues.

Still, Trump policy of solving problems with Moscow is not a real strategy. Because Kremlin is already trying to put together an alliance to fight the US unilateralism and NATO expansion eastward. The summit, therefore, bears no hopes of mending the two traditional rivals’ ties. Rather, a new Cold War is in the making, though in a different form. So, Trump uses Russia tactically to foist his conditions on his allies amid a battle of interests between the allies.