Several European leaders held an emergency meeting in Paris the day before. Image:elconfidencial
by Guillermo Alvarado
Several European leaders held an emergency meeting in Paris to analyze where the continental bloc stands in relations with US President Donald Trump, both on trade issues and the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
At the invitation of their French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, the presidents and prime ministers of the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, the Netherlands, Denmark and the European Union's institutions gathered to discuss their role on a world stage dominated by the controversial head of the White House.
There are two fundamental points on which these nations of the so-called old continent feel overlooked, one of them being the imposition of additional tariffs on products exported to the United States, which, they argue, contradicts their status as very close partners.
This measure has been perceived by some as a betrayal, since the European Union, instead of becoming a balancing factor in the world, has chosen to follow in the footsteps of Washington and the warmongering North Atlantic Treaty Organization, NATO.
With bitterness they are discovering once again that the United States has no friends, it has only interests, and to guarantee them it does not mind going over anyone's head, no matter how close it thinks it is to the northern power.
A new example occurred in recent days, when Trump decided to completely ignore his "allies" in the alleged search for the end of the armed conflict in Eastern Europe.
Of course, this does not mean that the US president loves peace and the welfare of mankind, but for practical reasons, namely economic. Ukraine needs to be rebuilt, and Washington wants not a slice, but the whole pie of this juicy business.
In order to better understand the situation of the European Union, several analysts point to the characteristics of the meeting in Paris, which show the serious cracks in this bloc.
Only seven of the 27 members of the body were summoned, which means that not all of them are traveling in the same carriage, or even in the same train, which made the "small" partners even more uncomfortable, as they felt left out of the important decisions.
In any case, the position of the integrating mechanism is uncomfortable, and nothing illustrates this better than the image of the painter whose ladder is suddenly taken away, leaving him literally hanging by his brush.
