Visiting his Scottish summer palace at Turnberry last month, Donald Trump invited local, UK, and European dignitaries to pay their respects.
During a round of golf, Scottish First Minister John Swinney was required to rise and accept the emperor’s plaudits that he was “a very special guy” before taking his seat on cue, halfway up the packed bleachers containing the president’s audience. “He really loves the people of this country, and we really appreciate it,” Trump continued.
The price Swinney paid for this pat on the head, besides his dignity and that of his office? £180,000 of investment to a golf tournament at another of Trump’s resorts in Aberdeen. That’s the difference between a friendly humiliation and a public dressing-down.
It’s loose change in Trump’s world. Higher up the food chain, the costs were far graver. European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen was flown in to make a humiliating trade deal. Its terms included a 15 percent tariff on EU goods to the United States worth an estimated $90 billion to US coffers, without reciprocal tariffs on American exports to the bloc. Meanwhile, the Europeans would spend hundreds of billions more on US-made weapons and energy products.
The spectacle of imperial grandeur, played out against a sleepy rural Scottish backdrop, lent impact to European concessions. Something has silently but clearly shifted in the balance of power between the United States and its European allies who, while always the junior party, today appear now more like satrapies.
Yet it was all prelude. The worst insult, for Europe and especially for Ukraine, would come in August with Trump’s meeting with Vladimir Putin in Alaska. Welcoming the Russian strongman in from the isolation to which European…
Auteur: David Jamieson
