Until Now I Didn’t Doubt The Intelligence Of European Leaders

A recent article in the Financial Times states that leaders of European countries called an assembly to ‘“send a signal of what the EU expects” from Mr. Trump’. That’s why the wording of the heading of this piece expresses doubt as to the judgement and wisdom of the current leaders of the EU. I never doubted the intelligence of European leaders, only their judgement and ability to make wise decisions, and I believe this decision to scold Donald Trump is an example of a losing-liberal gasp for relevance in a world of rapid change that’s leaving them behind.

Following the international disaster of the last eight years of Barack Obama, these European fools are going to pretend to lecture Donald Trump? The proper response from Europe to Mr. Trump’s election should be “Congratulations Mr. Trump on your victory, and thank God that Barack Obama will soon be gone”. But I’m not holding my breath.

But, in all fairness to the EU,  European fortunes have been under attack lately, first with Brexit and now with the election of Donald Trump, who is not of a mind to play traditional ball with Europe any more than he played ball with the American political establishment. EU leaders saw what happened to Hillary Clinton and want to try to intimidate Mr. Trump into giving them some “safe-space”.  We’ll see how Trump responds.

Britain, France and Hungary, by the way, declined to meet with their European compatriots, so we’ll have to wait and see how these three decliners impact the unity of the other countries.

As regards the Financial Times quote of ‘“what the EU expects” from Mr. Trump’, I think they very much want Mr. Trump to agree that the United States will continue to supply the military umbrella that protects Europe, and to keep picking up the tab for EU’s defense. But the politics of the western world has changed in the last several months, and it may continue to change even further as Mr. Trump takes office and shows the world that things will not remain as they have been the last 50 years. And along with this political change has come a change in attitude and financial viability. Europe must begin to foot the bill for their military protection because the United States is no longer willing or able to do so. We want strong and friendly relations with Europe, but the days of playing Santa Clause are over.

The judgement of European leaders has long been in doubt with their weak armies and their willingly allowing masses of Muslim immigrants and refugees to settle within their borders, even while Muslim extremists are declaring that they will kill all non-Muslims and while we have witnessed massive and murderous terrorist attacks on the European population by Muslims residing in Europe. One hopes they are wise enough to work with Mr. Trump to assure continued peace and prosperity between all our nations.