Rift between Trump and Europe widens

MUNICH — European leaders have long been alarmed that President Donald Trump’s words and Twitter messages could undo a trans-Atlantic alliance that has grown to be strong over seven decades. They had clung to the hope that those ties would bear up under the strain.

But in the last few days of a prestigious annual security conference in Munich, the rift between Europe and the Trump administration became open, angry and concrete, diplomats and analysts say.

A senior German official, who asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to speak on such matters, shrugged his shoulders and said: “No one any longer believes that Trump cares about the views or interests of the allies. It’s broken.”

The most immediate danger, diplomats and intelligence officials warned, is that the trans-Atlantic fissures now risk being exploited by Russia and China.

Even the saturnine Russian foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, happily noted the strains, remarking that the Euro-Atlantic relationship had become increasingly “tense.”

“We see new cracks forming, and old cracks deepening,” Lavrov said.

The Europeans no longer believe that Washington will change, not when Trump sees traditional allies as economic rivals and leadership as diktat. His distaste for multilateralism and international cooperation is a challenge to the very heart of what Europe is and needs to be in order to have an impact in the world.

But beyond the Trump administration, an increasing number of Europeans say they believe that relations with the United States will never be the same again.

“Two years of Mr. Trump, and a majority of French and Germans now trust Russia and China more than the United States,” said Karl Kaiser, a longtime analyst of German-American relations.

There were signs that not all American and European leaders were willing to surrender the alliance so easily.

To show solidarity with Europe, more than 50 American lawmakers, both Republicans and Democrats — a record number — attended the Munich Security Conference. They came, said Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., “to show Europeans that there is another branch of government which strongly supports NATO and the trans-Atlantic alliance.”