“The West, as we knew it, exists no more,” Der Spiegel editor Klaus Brinkbäumer wrote in the magazine’s opening piece, subtly illustrated with the Stars and Stripes engulfed in flames. “Our current relationship to the U.S. can’t be considered a friendship, or even a partnership.” [...]
Beyond Iran, what worries many European officials, particularly in Berlin, is that Trump’s move offers further proof of his willingness to follow through on his threats toward them. In Germany’s case, Trump has been lambasting its relatively low defense spending since before he came into office and as recently as last month during a visit by Chancellor Angela Merkel to the White House. [...]
Merkel told Trump in Washington that Germany was on course to reach the 2 percent target by 2030, six years after the agreed deadline. Grenell said convincing the Germans to move faster would be his “No. 1 issue” in Berlin. [...]
But how? European efforts to create “strategic autonomy” from the U.S. are in their infancy. The Continent, as European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker bemoaned last week, can’t even agree on a common foreign policy. What hope does it have of forming a credible military force any time soon?
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