Trump: "They call me the president of Europe"

The American president says that, thanks to him, the United States is now the most respected country in the world.

The controversial US President, Donald Trump , is not content with having twisted the European Union's arm, but is also publicly boasting of having made it capitulate , both with regard to the trade war declared by his Administration against the rest of the world, in which there no longer seem to be allies, but only rivals, and, above all, with regard to its demands for investment in military spending within the framework of NATO.

"They call me the president of Europe," Trump said Monday, referring to his role as a mediator with Vladimir Putin in an attempt to end the war in Ukraine, but also to his having forced European member countries of the Atlantic Alliance to commit to increasing defense spending from 2% to 5% of GDP by 2035. "They respect their president to the point that they jokingly call me the president of Europe , which is an honor," the histrionic US president told reporters during an event in the Oval Office to sign executive orders.

Trump, who never misses an opportunity to lash out harshly at domestic political opposition, accused the Democratic Party on Monday of funding protests to "try to destroy the country," while asserting that, thanks to his management at the White House, the United States "is now, by far, the most respected country in the world." This is also true in the EU. For Trump, this European respect for the US did not exist during his predecessor, Joe Biden, but it was his management and firm hand with allies that have restored it.

"You saw it with NATO, where they agreed to go from 2% to 5%" in defense spending, Trump told reporters. And "you saw it with European leaders," the US president said, referring to the summit held in Washington on August 18, where Trump held a bilateral meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and then with a delegation of European leaders, including French President Emmanuel Macron ; German Chancellor Friedrich Merz ; British Prime Minister Keir Starmer ; and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen .

A meeting that took place after Trump whitewashed Putin in Alaska and, by extension, his war of aggression in Ukraine, a whitewash that, so far, has not served to prompt the Moscow regime to send clear signals of wanting to end the invasion. In fact, Trump's intervention in the talks, putting Ukraine's interests in the background and the EU's role in a possible peace process in the background, has only served to prompt Russia to accelerate its offensive in order to expand the perimeter of the conquered territory as much as possible.

Trump said this Monday that the European leaders he received at the White House in mid-August "are good people; they're great leaders." This apparent rapport, however, hasn't prevented the US president from punishing the European Union with a basic 15% tariff.