WALTER RUSSELL MEAD:
“…But whatever Mr. Trump thinks, European unity matters to U.S. interests. A strong Europe and only a strong Europe can stabilize the region, manage migration and refugee issues in a humane and sustainable way, contain Russia at a reduced cost, and provide the markets that American companies need for growth. On its current course the EU cannot achieve these goals, and the decay or dissolution of the union would only make things worse.
It does not advance U.S. interests for Europe to go the way of the Soviet Union or stay deadlocked in decline. A vibrant Europe whose unity is based on common-sense cooperation and pro-growth economic policies suits America best, but neither the immobilism of Angela Merkel’s Germany nor hostile rhetoric from the White House can bring that about.
Instead of reforming itself, a beleaguered European establishment is circling the wagons against critics at home and abroad. Meanwhile, an American president who would rather have a Diet Coke with Viktor Orban than with Angela Merkel is hurling rhetorical firebombs across the Atlantic. No good will come of this sterile trans-Atlantic feuding, though both Russia and China will be happy to exploit the tensions and cleavages that result.
Europe continues to drift toward irrelevance on the global stage. Josef Joffe, longtime editor and publisher of Die Zeit and one of Europe’s most seasoned and respected diplomatic observers, argues in the February issue of Commentary that the Soros warning may be too late. The grand project of building the EU into a superpower has already imploded: At the level of world politics, “ ‘Europe’ does not exist.”
That lifelong proponents of European values like Messrs. Soros and Joffe increasingly share Mr. Trump’s harsh view of the EU as an irrelevant failure should make even the most headstrong Brussels partisans reflect. Europe is not on a sustainable path; nobody knows this better than those who love and value it most…”