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Europe’s ties with the United States were “disintegrating” amid a “historic period of upheaval” under US President Donald Trump’s administration, Germany’s Vice Chancellor Lars Klingbeil warned on Wednesday.
“The transatlantic alliance is undergoing a much more profound upheaval than we may have been willing to admit until now,” Klingbeil said in a speech in Berlin.
“The transatlantic relationship as we have known it is currently disintegrating.”
Klingbeil said he had become even more convinced of this in recent days. He visited Washington this week with Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul.
Klingbeil cited several reasons for his belief that ties between the United States and Europe, traditionally close allies, were changing significantly.
While he called Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro, who was captured in a US raid on Caracas, a “brutal dictator”, he also said that Washington’s military action had violated “the principles of international law.”
“And we should not view Venezuela as an isolated case,” he said, noting the Trump administration had made threats against other Latin American countries.
He also cited Trump’s threats to take control of Greenland, an autonomous territory that is part of the Kingdom of Denmark, and his administration’s comments in its national security strategy that Europe was facing “civilisational erasure”.
“We are currently living in the midst of a historic period of upheaval … in which all the certainties we could rely on in Europe are under pressure,” Klingbeil said.
The United States and Germany, Europe’s top economy, had long been united by a shared interest in free trade and open markets, said Klingbeil.
“That is no longer the case today. But that does not mean that we are abandoning free trade or open markets,” he said.
“We must not abandon rules-based trade. We must defend this order, even without our American partners if necessary.”
Additional sources • AFP