EU must replace the US, says European Commission Chief

The EU’s Chief Commissioner, Jean-Claude Juncker, has declared that the US is no longer a reliable ally, and cannot be counted on to cooperate with others, and whose international influence must be replaced.

The statements came following Trump’s long awaited withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) nuclear restriction agreement providing Iran with economic sanctions relief from measures related to their nuclear development program.

The Express reports:

EU chief Jean-Claude Juncker has said Europe needs to “replace” the United States as a world superpower in the midst of an angry outburst after President Donald Trump confirmed he was pulling the US out of the Iran nuclear deal.

Mr Juncker, who is President of the European Commission, the bloc’s ruling body, made his remarks during an address to Belgium’s Flemish Regional Parliament in Brussels.

Claiming that the US “no longer wants to cooperate” with other parts of the world, he added that it was turning away from friendly relations “with a ferocity that can only surprise us”.

He added: “At this point, we have to replace the United States, which as an international actor has lost vigour, and because of it, in the long term, influence.”

If America is facing isolation, it’s not as much something that is being done to it by foreign powers.

In this case, America is doing it to itself. Juncker makes clear how Trump’s policy of ‘my way or the highway’ is not how things are done in foreign relations and multilateral agreements, as a multilateral agreement, of its very nature, is a thing involving the participation and interests of multiple parties.

That one party intends to dominate, make, and break such agreements is an insult to the entire process itself, and therefore cannot be considered an equal partner, let alone a reliable one, as Trump’s withdrawal from the JCPOA bluntly illustrates. Rather than a deal maker, Trump is developing the reputation of being a deal breaker.