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When the Trump administration released its National Security Strategy last week, officials from the European Union did not react immediately, saying that they needed time to study it. Well, what a difference a weekend can make. The reaction is now far from muted, as Teri Schultz reports from Brussels.
TERI SCHULTZ: The chapter on Europe in the U.S. National Security Strategy has left many Europeans feeling somewhere between insecure and angry.
SYLVIE MATELLY: (Speaking French).
SCHULTZ: Three pages full of vitriol, is how French political analyst Sylvie Matelly describes the section.
MATELLY: (Speaking French).
SCHULTZ: Going on to say that while Europeans may not be surprised at the Trump administration's positions, the security strategy - or NSS - does raise questions. Among the biggest is whether the U.S. any longer sees Russia as an adversary, since the NSS says only that many Europeans regard Russia as an existential threat. Ian Lesser, head of the German Marshall Fund's office in Brussels, says that's a significant shift.
IAN LESSER: It underscores a basic difference in the current U.S. and European approaches to the war in Ukraine and to Russia. Whereas, you know, the administration now, I think, sees this as simply an unpleasant problem to be fixed and put aside, taken off the table, to move on to other issues.
SCHULTZ: That reading of Russia likely spells more trouble for the transatlantic relationship, says Giuseppe Spatafora of the EU Institute for Security Studies.
GIUSEPPE SPATAFORA: This is a threat that, according to the NSS, the Europeans created themselves partly out of paranoia. And therefore, it is more difficult to see a way for the European allies to become - to remain useful to the United States, which makes it easier for the U.S. to criticize and go against them.
SCHULTZ: And that, the NSS does, saying Europe faces civilizational erasure, which it blames in large part on the European Union due to migration policies, suppression of free speech and political opposition and the loss of national identities. The document speculates the continent might not even be recognizable in 20 years.
One bright spot for the U.S., the NSS notes, is the, quote, "growing influence of patriotic European parties," which the EU considers support for the far right. This part has been perhaps the most provocative among EU officials, with European Council President Antonio Costa coming out swinging. Costa says he understands that Americans don't share European views on some things, but when it comes to the U.S. prioritizing - as the document states - cultivating resistance to Europe's current trajectory, Costa draws the line.
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ANTONIO COSTA: (Through interpreter) What we cannot accept is this threat of interference in the political life of Europe. The United States cannot replace European citizens in choosing which are the right parties and which are the wrong parties.
SCHULTZ: Costa says, since the U.S. says in the NSS that Europe is still an ally, it deserves better treatment. However, a U.S. official whose job is to meet with European allies every day says it's up to Europe to change its own image. Here's Matt Whitaker, the U.S. ambassador to NATO, speaking at a conference in Doha over the weekend.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MATT WHITAKER: Is Europe a dynamic economy that can grow or is it just a museum that is a relic of the past and we just go to see the cathedrals and the, you know, lovely wines and cheeses and beers and waffles, in the case of Brussels?
SCHULTZ: Giuseppe Spatafora says some Europeans may be counting on the fact that Trump is unpredictable and that they've managed to improve his opinion of them before.
SPATAFORA: And therefore, this could amount to nothing in practical terms.
SCHULTZ: But it will nonetheless make it harder in the future should the U.S. and Europe wish to portray a united front - for example at NATO - especially with the Kremlin praising the NSS as something that, quote, "corresponds in many ways" to its own vision.
For NPR News, I'm Teri Schultz in Brussels.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARC DE SOLEIL'S "MUMBO SUGAR") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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