"MUNICH — An annual security conference where Western allies have long forged united fronts erupted Saturday into a full-scale assault on the Trump administration’s foreign policy. European leaders, would-be Democratic challengers and even the president’s Republican backers took the floor to rebuke the president’s go-it-alone approach.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel — habitually cautious about provoking Trump — led the charge, unleashing a stinging, point-by-point takedown of the administration’s tendency to treat its allies as adversaries.
The speech appeared to provide much-needed catharsis. Trump’s antagonistic behavior has bred two years of accumulated grievance in much of Europe but has been met with few substantive answers on how to effectively challenge it.
Merkel accused the United States of strengthening Iran and Russia with its plans for a speedy military pullout from Syria. She expressed shock that the Trump administration would deem BMWs made in South Carolina a threat to national security.
And she lamented that the U.S.-led global order “has collapsed into many tiny parts.”
The crowd gave the German chancellor an extended standing ovation — a rare display at the normally button-down Munich Security Conference. The customarily reserved Merkel beamed as she took her seat. Ivanka Trump, the president’s daughter and a top adviser, looked on from the crowd, stone-faced.
The speech, and the response, underscored just how far apart the United States has drifted from its traditional allies during Trump’s term — and how little Europeans care about concealing their contempt.
At last year’s conference, U.S. allies in Europe were reluctant to voice out loud the depths of their concerns with the state of the transatlantic relationship, said Ian Bremmer, president of the Eurasia Group.
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"Merkel devoted much of her speech to an item-by-item rundown of areas where the U.S. and Europe disagree, seeking to refute the Trump administration position on each one. She appeared particularly aggrieved by U.S. threats to raise tariffs on German cars — justified on the grounds that they endanger U.S. national security.
The idea, she noted dryly, was “a bit of a shock” given that BMW has a major manufacturing center in South Carolina." WP
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world...=.e2a0b46e2595
If Pence and Prez Turnip think they can push Chancellor Merkel around, they've got another think coming. Prep school peckerwoods on display.