German Foreign Minister: “We Can No Longer Completely Rely on the White House”
Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty
On Monday, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said that Europe could not fully rely on the Trump administration. Maas’ comments come after Trump recently referred to the European Union as “a foe.”
Mass spoke to the Funke newspaper group about Germany’s relationship with Trump:
We can no longer completely rely on the White House. To maintain our partnership with the USA we must readjust it. The first clear consequence can only be that we need to align ourselves even more closely in Europe. “Europe must not let itself be divided however sharp the verbal attacks and absurd the tweets may be.
The comment follows Trump’s Sunday interview with CBS News in which he referred to the EU as one of America’s biggest “foes.” In the interview, CBS’s Jeff Glor asked Trump, “Who’s your biggest competitor, your biggest foe globally right now?” Trump answered:
Well, I think we have a lot of foes. I think the European Union is a foe, what they do to us in trade. Now, you wouldn’t think of the European Union, but they’re a foe. Russia is foe [sic] in certain respects. China is a foe economically, certainly they are a foe. But that doesn’t mean they are bad. It doesn’t mean anything. It means that they are competitive.