As the EU engages in ongoing talks with the Trump administration to set out a peace deal in Ukraine, some officials emphasised their lasting relationship with the US, while raising “questions” over the document.
“The US will remain our most important ally in the [Nato] alliance. This alliance, however, is focused on addressing security policy issues,” German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said on Friday.
“I believe questions of freedom of expression or the organisation of our free societies do not belong [in the strategy], in any case at least when it comes to Germany.”
In a social media post addressed to his “American friends”, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said that “Europe is your closest ally, not your problem” and noted their “common enemies”.
“This is the only reasonable strategy of our common security. Unless something has changed.”
Meanwhile, former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt wrote that the document “places itself to the right of the extreme right”.
The Trump administration has fostered links with the far-right AfD party in Germany, which has been classified as extreme right by German intelligence.
Promoting an “America First” message, the strategy says the US intends to target alleged drug-trafficking boats in the Caribbean Sea and the eastern Pacific Ocean, considering possible military action in Venezuela.
The US also calls on an increased defence spending from Japan, South Korea, Australia and Taiwan.
Democrats in Congress warned that the document could shatter US foreign relations.
Representative Jason Crow of Colorado, who sits on House committees overseeing intelligence and the armed forces, called the strategy “catastrophic to America’s standing in the world”.
New York Representative Gregory Meeks said it “discards decades of value-based, US leadership”.
