Trump hates unity, he's playing on Europe's divisions

Maybe this July will be remembered as the month when Europe tried to save the liberal world order that President Donald Trump is doing his best to dynamite. The reality is probably more prosaic. Europe is finally realising that before saving the world, it needs to save itself from the assault of its former protector, the United States.
The European side of the transatlantic family is at last accepting the idea that its reliable uncle has turned into a bully. Sure, that kinsman was always bossy, easily irritated. But when the going got rough, Europeans knew they could count on him. After all, they came from the same world, with common memories and values, and shared interests.
Since Trump's July sweep through Europe - to Brussels, England, Scotland and Helsinki - that certainty has evaporated. The American president made clear that he could not care less about common memories and values, that he hates the family's culture, its do-gooder attitude. He sees America's interests differently. He has convinced himself that the family is taking advantage of him. "You're stealing from my piggy bank!" he rages. He wants his money back. "Me first!" has become his motto.
Trump, who has never liked strong women, brutally pressured Angela Merkel of Germany and Britain's Theresa May. The last thing he wants is a united family, so he plays on Europe's divisions, openly courting rebellious members of the bloc who promote his toxic views.
The family is somehow holding together, but is traumatised. It is not ready to cut ties with the uncle. Yet it knows, now, that it must devise a new way to deal with this angry, out-of-control, but still powerful big man - and possibly learn to live without him.
All this theatre was on display in Brussels on July 11 and 12 when the 29 Nato members convened. After a blast at Germany before breakfast, things went relatively smoothly on the first day. Over dinner, Trump entertained his counterparts by bragging about his meeting with Kim Jongn of North Korea.
The next morning, all hell broke loose. The president turned up late at a meeting about Nato's partnership with Georgia and Ukraine. According to a senior European diplomat who wished to remain anonymous, Trump took the floor and "engaged into a 20-minute rant on just about everything. The Georgian and Ukrainian delegations were asked to leave, looking, said a Nato official who also wished to remain anonymous, "as embarrassed as neighbours invited to a family reunion that turns sour." Behind closed doors, Germany took another beating. Trump now demanded not 2 per cent but 4 per cent of each country's gross domestic product as a military spending goal, a totally unrealistic figure that nobody took seriously.
The Europeans started to react. The first to speak out was Lithuania's president, Dalia Grybauskaite, another strong woman, who happens to be a black belt in karate. She defended Merkel, whose leadership, she pointed out, was crucial to achieving European unity on sanctions against Russia. The Slovak prime minister also came to the rescue. But by then, Trump was satisfied with his tantrum. He could go out and tell the media that thanks to him, the free-riders had agreed to pay up - even though those commitments predated his presidency.
Merkel and President Emmanuel Macron of France chose to stay calm and focus on the positive: The alliance had survived, it had issued a strong statement on Russia and it had laid the groundwork for important future military developments.
This turned out to be cold comfort. Two more episodes of Trump's diplomatic killing game - his very public humiliation of May in England and his embarrassing servility before President Vladimir Putin of Russia in Helsinki - would only add insult to injury. At each stage of this ordeal, European officials were struck by how little influence the president's men seemed to have on him - men like Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Defence Secretary Jim Mattis and the national security adviser, John Bolton.
How, then, can Europe work with Trump? The senior European diplomat lists two problems: "One is the impact he has on the real world - he breaks everything. The other problem is that we're facing a sinking administration."  Macron's strategy is to stay the multilateral course, with or without the US , while strengthening "European strategic thinking."
This shift comes amid a growing awareness in European business and political circles that Europe is not included in the big power struggle - among America, China and Russia - that defines the Trumpian world. The economic theorist Jacques Attali warns that "for the U., Europe is no longer a partner; it has become prey." France's ambassador to the United Nations, François Delattre, says that Europe "must assert itself as one of the true poles of action and influence of a new multipolar world."
This implies two conditions: Europe must overcome its divisions, so adroitly exploited by Trump and Putin, and Germany needs to come to terms with the concept of European power. France, a military and nuclear power, has a long history of managing political and strategic differences with America, and would enroll even a post-Brexit Britain in this endeavor. But for Germany, this is an existential crisis. For almost 80 years, it has flourished under the protective umbrella of the United States to become the biggest and most prosperous country in the European Union. Now it sees all the pillars of its foreign policy collapsing.
There is already one domain where Europe is showing that it can think and act strategically: trade. On July 17, the day after Trump declared the European Union "a foe" while publicly complimenting his "good competitor" Vladimir Putin, European leaders joined Japan's prime minister, Shinzo Abe, in Tokyo to sign a major trade deal proclaiming, "We stand together against protectionism." While in Asia, they also held a summit meeting with China's president, Xi Jinping, in Beijing.  Take that, Uncle.
- NYT Syndicate
Sylvie Kauffmann is the editorial director and a former editor-in-chief of Le Monde, and a contributing opinion writer