Donald Trump’s rise to power demonstrated that the current U.S. administration looks down on Western Europe—more than that, it sees the region as a freeloader. 

The Americans also quickly marginalized German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who criticized the Trump administration’s policies at the Munich Security Conference in February. He notably said: “The new American administration has a completely different understanding of the world than we do. It pays no attention to the established rules of partnership and trust. We cannot change this and must accept it and find a way to live with it.”

After the G7 summit in Canada, which Trump left early, the American president scolded his allies for excluding Russia from the group and then harshly rebuked French President Emmanuel Macron, writing on his social media: “The publicity-seeking President of France, Emmanuel Macron, falsely claimed that I left the summit in Canada to return to Washington and work on a ceasefire between Israel and Iran. Not true! He has no idea why I’m heading back to Washington, but it certainly has nothing to do with a ceasefire. It’s much more serious. Whether intentional or not, Emmanuel is always wrong.”

Trump called Macron “publicity-seeking” and emphasized that the French president “constantly gets everything mixed up.”

When the foreign ministers of France, Germany, Britain, and the EU met with Iran’s foreign minister in Geneva on June 20, the Europeans tried their hardest to convince Tehran to unconditionally surrender to Trump’s terms. However, the U.S. president immediately stated that Europe and its negotiations in Geneva would not help resolve Iran’s nuclear problem: “Iran does not want to talk to Europe; they want to talk to us. Europe can’t help here.”

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