Politico | In abrupt shift, Trump makes nice with EU, gets tough on Russia
Few people close to the president believe he has changed much, but the White House appears sensitive to mounting criticism.
This story is published in a content partnership with POLITICO. It was originally reported by Andrew Restuccia on politico.com July 25, 2018.
Over the course of just 11 days, US President Donald Trump went from calling the European Union a “foe” and publicly questioning his own intelligence agencies to palling around with a top EU official in the Rose Garden and scheduling a meeting with his senior advisers to discuss election security.
It was an abrupt tonal shift for the president – and it underscored the growing pressure on Trump from fellow Republicans to toughen his public stance against Russia and to limit the fallout of the escalating global trade wars.
Few people close to the president believe he has changed much, and they expect the president to continue bashing long-time US allies and cosying up to Russian President Vladimir Putin whenever he gets the chance.
Still, the announcements on trade and Russia appeared to serve as high-profile messaging after a week of chaos that Trump is on the same page as his political party – and that the White House is sensitive to the mounting criticism.
Trump’s appearance with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker in the Rose Garden was a stark departure from this month’s Nato meeting in Brussels, at which the president repeatedly lambasted European leaders.
And it was another example of Trump’s deep unpredictability on the global stage. European leaders have long complained privately that they never know which Trump they’re going to get – the Nato-hating, EU-bashing, tariff-loving bully or the accommodating deal maker.
