It’s no secret that President Donald Trump has been difficult for other world leaders to deal with, but a new report from the Wall Street Journal reveals that their frustration with their American counterpart is more severe than has previously been known.
In January, reports the Journal, European leaders held an emergency meeting to discuss one thing: “how to manage a breakup with America.” At the time, Trump was beginning to ramp up his overseas ventures, capturing Maduro in Venezuela and escalating his threats to invade Greenland. “Around a circular table in the European Council headquarters known as ‘The SpaceEgg,’ heads of government were venting so emotionally about the 47th president that some of the nearly 30 leaders present would later call the session ‘therapy night.’”
“We are drawing a line here,” declared French President Emmanuel Macron, according to several leaders present and their most senior aides. Europe had spent a year trying to flatter Trump and dissuade him from his wildest ideas, but now French troops were stationed in Greenland alongside Danish forces in preparation for what could become “a shooting war with America.” Because of Trump, Europe could no longer rely on the U.S. for security, argued Macron, saying, “There is no going back.”
The Prime Minister of Belgium warned that Europe was on the path to becoming Trump’s “miserable slave” as other leaders complained about the U.S.’s abandonment of its traditional leadership role. Only conservative prime minister of Italy, Giorgia Meloni, disagreed, saying that Trump could be bargained with. Meloni’s relationship with Trump has fallen apart since then over his claim that she begged him for a photo at the G7 summit, which she says was a lie. Even before the summit, Meloni had begun shifting her opinion, admitting as Trump launched was against Iran that he “is not reasonable.”
While reporting on the changing relationship between Trump and other world leaders, the Journal spoke with many heads of governments and their ministers, and reviewed classified assessments of the U.S. president that have been prepared by European intelligence agencies. One offered a particularly colorful take.
According to Britain’s MI6 – the famed intelligence agency many Americans associate with James Bond – the “climate of fear” in Washington had grown to allegorical proportions. In its report to Prime Minister Keir Starmer, it asserted that Trump’s second administration “is ‘The Crucible’ meets ‘Wolf Hall,’” referencing two fictional works about the Salem Witch Trials and the court of England’s ill-tempered Henry VIII. The British spy agency instructed its staff not to broach the subject of the president with their CIA counterparts.”
These are not positive comparisons. In the case of the Crucible, the assessment is suggesting that the White House has become infected with witch-hunt levels of paranoia. The comparison to Henry VIII is no more optimistic, as the ruler’s reign was characterized by narcissism, tyranny and madness.
The Journal noted another assessment from a southern European nation that was less than optimistic about Trump’s administration, reading, “You are not dealing with an administration that has processes, you are dealing with a single volatile individual.”