Donald Trump takes office today as the 45th President of the United States.
His election has certainly been controversial: he received almost three million fewer votes than his opponent, he is a polarising figure, has numerous potential conflicts of interest, has quarrelled with the US intelligence services, his candidacy was supported by the Russians through a series of e-mail hacking and his foreign policy statements have caused great alarm around the world. The new President enters the White House with a historic low approval rating of 40 per cent.
Mr Trump’s attitude to Europe so far has been most disturbing. Under successive US presidents, the cornerstone of US foreign policy has been a strong Transatlantic alliance that has served the US and Europe very well. Unfortunately, Mr Trump has undermined both Nato and the European Union. In a recent interview, he called Nato “obsolete” and said he expected more countries to leave the EU.
Such an approach is extremely worrying and shows a distinct lack of understanding about the successes of Nato and the EU, which have contributed to peace, security and stability for both the US and Europe.
A strong, prosperous and united Europe is certainly in America’s interest and Washington’s closet allies around the globe will always be Europeans, something Mr Trump will hopefully soon learn once he takes office. Europe, including the Maltese EU presidency, must now go out of its way to explain to Mr Trump that the two sides share common interests and values and are natural allies and friends.
Mr Trump’s views on Russia and President Vladimir Putin, in particular, have caused eyebrows to be raised in Europe. Of course, improved relations between the Washington and Moscow are in everybody’s interest and there are a number of areas, such as nuclear proliferation and the fight against jihadist terrorism, where more cooperation between the two sides will be a good thing. However, improved ties with Moscow must never come about at the expense of America’s genuine friends, both in Europe and around the globe.
Some of Mr Trump’s comments on issues such as the Iran nuclear deal, global warming, the use of torture, the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, the ‘One China’ policy and trade wars are also very worrying. Perhaps he will now tone down his rhetoric and starts to understand the realities of the global system.
The only encouraging thing to emerge so far is that quite a few of his nominees for top Cabinet posts have contradicted many of his foreign policy statements and have, for example, stressed the importance of a strong Nato, their confidence in the US intelligence services, the threat posed by Russia and the importance of sticking to both the Iran and the climate change deals. The Republicans in Congress, furthermore, have not shown the same appetite as Mr Trump to undermine Nato and accommodate Mr Putin, something the new President cannot ignore.
Mr Trump has a tremendous task ahead of him.
Domestically, he can only be successful if he learns to reach out to all Americans, something he has notdone so far, and to truly tackle his conflict of interests.
On the international stage, he will have to learn that narrow nationalism will get him nowhere and that the only way to succeed is by engaging with the world and sticking with his true friends.
The US is the leader of the free world and the world’s greatest democracy. One sincerely hopes it remains so under Mr Trump.