Trump adds to Europe’s political chaos
LONDON — President Donald Trump, a disruptive global force with a penchant for diplomatic gaffes and inserting himself into other countries’ politics, leaves Sunday for the United Kingdom and France at a moment of intense political tumult across Europe.
His state visit to Britain will center on a banquet with Queen Elizabeth II and the steadfastly apolitical royal family at Buckingham Palace, a coveted invitation.
The four-day trip also includes a twohour visit to Normandy, France, to mark the 75th anniversary of the D-Day invasion, and two nights at the president’s golf resort on the west coast of Ireland.
Britain faces deep uncertainty about the imminent departure of Prime Minister Theresa May, questions about who will replace her and how that person can deliver what she could not: the long anticipated and painful separation from the European Union.
Trump will meet with May on Tuesday, four days before she leaves office as a casualty of the Brexit crisis. But he was not invited to speak to Parliament, as President Barack Obama did in 2011 — a snub that reflects Britain’s deep unease with Trump’s abrasive politics. Street protests are expected, and London’s City Hall has given permission for a massive orange-haired baby blimp to fly over Parliament Square.
“Ten years ago, most people would have looked at the United Kingdom and the United States of America as the world’s two strongest, most stable democracies,” said R. Nicholas Burns, a former U.S. ambassador to NATO under President George W. Bush. “Ten years later, they’re both in existential crisis.”
The visit comes just after European Union parliamentary elections that saw modest gains by anti-democratic populists fashioned in the Trump mold — a reflection of the widespread unrest, stemming from a slow-growing economy and an immigration crisis that has created upheaval across the continent.
As president, he has challenged transAtlantic relations with some of America’s most important and reliable allies, threatening new tariffs, demanding that NATO allies contribute more to their own defense and even describing the European Union as “a foe” because of its trade practices.
The president’s visit to the American cemetery overlooking Omaha Beach in Normandy, where about 9,380 U.S. servicemen killed in the June 1944 D-Day invasion are buried, is also laden with awkward subtext.
Last November, Trump flew to Paris but showed scant interest in ceremonies marking the centennial of the World War I armistice. He skipped a wreath-laying ceremony at an American cemetery and a march down the Champs-Élysées with other world leaders intended to convey solidarity for the international order — an order that Trump, with his America First mantra and sovereignty-focused foreign policy, seemingly has worked to unwind.
The D-Day anniversary “is going to be a day of memorials and reflection, thinking back on what alliances have meant to both Europe and the U.S. for the last 75 years,” said Rachel Rizzo, a fellow at the Center for a New American Security, a bipartisan think tank in Washington. “Memorializing that with Donald Trump, who has put more stress on the trans-Atlantic relationship than any leader in history, is going to be a really interesting optic.”
Last summer, Trump’s visit to the United Kingdom was overshadowed by his sharp criticism of May on the eve of their meeting, when he told a London tabloid that she had disregarded his advice on how to carry out Brexit and that her top political rival, Boris Johnson, would be a solid successor.
Now that May is on the way out, Trump has expressed sympathy for her plight. But he’s left the door open to meeting in London with Johnson or Nigel Farage, two combative pro-Brexit politicians seeking a larger role in the new British government.
Trump claimed to have predicted the surprising 2016 Brexit vote, which he held up as proof that his own unexpected election was indeed possible. His continued support for Brexit could undermine U.S. efforts to persuade British leaders not to issue licenses to Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei, which is on a U.S. trade blacklist, according to Daniel Fried, a former U.S. diplomat in Europe who now is at the nonpartisan Atlantic Council think tank in Washington.
“Statements in support of Brexit can only hurt the U.S. ability to get things done,” Fried said.
Like many European leaders, French President Emanuel Macron is also staring down the forces of populist nationalism. His main political rival, Marine Le Pen, gained ground in the EU elections, which saw her nationalist party take 24% of the French vote. Macron’s La Republique en Marche party earned 21%.
Trump might hold a news conference Tuesday after his meeting with May; and he is set to meet with Macron in Caen on Thursday following the D-Day ceremonies. He is skipping an evening dinner Macron is hosting for world leaders.
What he says publicly after meeting the two leaders is, as it always with Trump, impossible to predict.
“Does the president want to highlight the difficulties and make it more difficult for these leaders, or does he want to lift them up and try to encourage them in their pursuits?” said Heather Conley, a former senior State Department official who now runs the Europe program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, another think tank in Washington.
“Hopefully this is an occasion that’s so important that he will resist his temptation to weigh in and perhaps make things worse,” she said. “But we will just have to see.”
If past is prologue, Trump won’t resist the urge to weigh in with his own opinions and to align himself with populist, nationalistic leaders he views as strong.
Trump’s in-your-face put-down of May last summer, just before they met, reflected the president’s indifference to diplomatic norms that world leaders should avoid meddling in another nation’s politics while abroad, as well as his tendency to frequently embarrass his foreign hosts.
“The real fear is that he gets himself involved in the conservative party leadership contest by expressing his opinions about what should happen and who should win, particularly if he seems to be endorsing a particular candidate,” said Tim Bale, a professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London. “Donald Trump is seen as a laughing stock and figure of fun, not someone who you would necessarily take seriously, not someone whose judgment is trusted or respected,”