Donald’s views on Donald: Tusk hits back at Trump’s remarks on the EU
Donald Tusk has today slammed the "worrying declarations" about the EU made by new US President Donald Trump.
"For the first time in our history, in an increasingly multipolar external world, so many are becoming openly anti-European, or Eurosceptic at best," read a letter from the president of the European Council to EU member state leaders ahead of a summit in Malta on Friday. "Particularly the change in Washington puts the European Union in a difficult situation; with the new administration seeming to put into question the last 70 years of American foreign policy."
The letter continued: "We should remind our American friends of their own motto: United we stand, divided we fall."
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Trump has not been kind to the EU as of late. In the last few weeks, he has blasted the bloc as a "vehicle for Germany".
Meanwhile, in an interview with the Financial Times, published today, Trump's top trade adviser Peter Navarro called the euro a "grossly undervalued" currency, adding it was being used by Germany to "exploit" the US and give the country an unfair edge over its trading partners.
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However, Tusk, who did not go as far as to call Trump out by name in his letter, also cautioned the EU was under threat from not only changing political opinions in non-EU countries, but also a rise of nationalism from within the EU itself and the mindset of so-called pro-European elites.
The European Council president also listed an "assertive China" and "Russia's aggressive polic[ies]" as other global woes facing the EU.