Political conflict in the U.S. is a threat to stability worldwide, Europe’s foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini warned on the back of her first meeting with Donald Trump’s administration.
“I have never seen the U.S. so polarized, so divided and so ridden with conflict,” Mogherini told Die Welt in an interview published Wednesday, referring to her mid-February trip to Washington, D.C. “When the largest democracy in the world shows these kinds of tensions, that can be a destabilizing factor for the rest of the world.”Mogherini met with U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Trump adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner and then national security adviser Michael Flynn, who has since resigned after revelations he was in contact with the Kremlin during Trump’s campaign.
There will be an increasing number of issues on which Europe and the U.S. take different positions but, she said, “this is no drama.”
The EU’s high representative for foreign affairs and security policy said she expects both sides to pursue a pragmatic relationship and work out where their interests overlap.
As an Italian, she said she felt deep gratitude for the U.S.’s role in World War II but added that the transatlantic relationship is entering a new phase: “Today, perhaps we’re moving into an adult relationship, that is not only based on gratitude, but on our particular independent positions.”
She also warned against a flaring of tensions in the Middle East if Trump carried out his campaign pledge to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, saying the symbolic move would sour Arab public opinion and get in the way of a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict.
