Trump attacks ‘weak’ leaders of decaying European nations
US President Donald Trump has denounced Europe as a “decaying” group of nations, delivering a savage assessment of their political leaders.
President Donald Trump has slammed “weak” European leaders and accused them of failing to end the Ukraine war or control migration.
The US president also denounced Europe as a “decaying” group of nations in an interview with POLITICO.
“I think they’re weak,” Trump said of Europe’s political leaders. “But I also think that they want to be so politically correct.”
“I think they don’t know what to do,” he added. “Europe doesn’t know what to do.”
Trump was speaking with POLITICO’s Dasha Burns for a special episode of The Conversation.
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His attack was his strongest denunciation yet of the US’s western allies, and threatened relations with countries like France and Germany.
It comes as Europe has been working to end the war in Ukraine amid growing fears that Trump is being influenced by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
POLITICO reports that Trump offered no reassurance to Europeans on that score and declared that Russia was obviously in a stronger position than Ukraine.
Trump lamented that the Ukraine war was dragging on as Europe failed to make progress towards peace.
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky met with leaders of France, Germany and the United Kingdom on Monday.
“They talk, but they don’t produce, and the war just keeps going on and on,” said Trump.
Trump claimed to have offered a new draft of a peace plan that some Ukrainian officials liked but that Zelensky had not reviewed yet.
“It would be nice if he would read it,” Trump said.
Trump renewed his call for Ukraine to hold new elections.
“They haven’t had an election in a long time,” Trump said. “You know, they talk about a democracy, but it gets to a point where it’s not a democracy anymore.”
Ignoring pleas to stay out of other countries’ internal politics, Trump said he would continue to back his favoured candidates in European elections.
“I’d endorse,” Trump said. “I’ve endorsed people, but I’ve endorsed people that a lot of Europeans don’t like. I’ve endorsed Viktor Orbán (hard-right Hungarian prime minister).
The US president warned that European nations would “not be viable countries any longer” because of migration from the Middle East and Africa.
He singled out London’s left-wing mayor, Sadiq Khan, the city’s first Muslim mayor, as a “disaster” and blamed his election on immigration: “He gets elected because so many people have come in. They vote for him now.”
