EUROPEAN Union foreign ministers are gathering in Brussels to discuss what Donald Trump’s election means for trans-Atlantic ties and whether it will complicate relations with Russia.
At informal dinner talks, the ministers will debate how many of Trump’s campaign announcements – like isolationist positions on security and his rejection of international trade pacts and refusal to criticise Russian President Vladimir Putin – might translate into real policy. Before the dinner, EU diplomats were at a loss to explain Trump’s stunning victory or understand yet what it might really mean.
Giovanni Grevi, senior fellow at the European Policy Centre think tank, said that “co-operation between Europe and the US will not become impossible, but it will become much more difficult”. Grevi added: “Donald Trump has been putting America first ... in defining his foreign policy and it seems he is taking a very transactional approach to international affairs.
“This is very likely to apply also to trans-Atlantic relations. He will value Europeans in so far as they can match his priorities.”
Given Trump’s clear opposition to major trade pacts, EU officials are all but certain the massive Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) will have to be renegotiated, if any life remains in the project at all.
“With the new president-elect we don’t really know what will happen. There is strong reason to believe that there would be a pause in TTIP, that this might not be the biggest priority for the new administration,” EU Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstroem said on Friday.
Perhaps the most pressing problem, though, is to understand how Trump wants to deal with Putin. The EU has imposed sanctions on Russia over its annexation of Crimea and destabilising role elsewhere in Ukraine.
Some of those measures, including asset freezes on individuals and organisations, come up for renewal in January. EU leaders are due to discuss them at a summit in Brussels on December 15 and 16, but any signal from Trump about a softening of US relations with Russia is likely to embolden already-reluctant countries like Germany, Italy and others to push for an end to the sanctions regime, diplomats said.
The EU foreign ministers will meet again formally on Monday to discuss strained ties with membership candidate country Turkey, the conflict in Syria and Libya, and defence co-operation with the Nato military alliance.
Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton has blamed the FBI’s decision to revive its examination of her email accounts for her devastating defeat in the presidential election.
During a phone call with senior campaign donors, Clinton said she was winning until FBI director James Comey sent a letter to Congress announcing that the FBI had uncovered emails possibly related to its earlier probe into her use of a private server as Secretary of State. The new examination was sparked by an unrelated investigation into former New York politician Anthony Weiner, the estranged husband of one of her senior aides.
The surprise announcement by the FBI on October 28 came after three debates in which Trump was widely criticised for his performance. Clinton told the donors that her campaign was leading by large margins in nearly every battleground state and was tied in Arizona, until Comey released his letter.
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