BRUSSELS -- European leaders said Monday that they may have to stand alone without the United States once Donald Trump enters office, raising the prospect of an unprecedented breach in trans-Atlantic relations after Trump's comments that the European Union is bound for a breakup and that NATO is obsolete.
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Trump said in a weekend interview with The Times of London and Germany's Bild newspaper that the 28-nation EU was a vehicle for German interests and that he was indifferent to the bloc's fate. He also said he was committed to European defense even as he expressed skepticism about NATO's current configuration.
Trump's attitudes have alarmed Europe, which is facing a wave of elections this year in which anti-immigrant, anti-EU leaders are trying to gain power. Most mainstream leaders had committed to working with Trump after his inauguration Friday, even as they expressed hope that he would moderate his views once he took office.
"We Europeans have our destiny in our own hands," German Chancellor Angela Merkel told reporters in Berlin. She pledged to work with Trump whenever possible.
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French President Francois Hollande was even more outspoken in his defiance.
Europe "has no need for outside advice to tell it what to do," Hollande said at a Paris ceremony for outgoing U.S. Ambassador Jane Hartley.
"Europe will always be willing to pursue trans-Atlantic cooperation, but it will base its decisions on its interests and its values," he added.
The full ramifications of a breakdown in trans-Atlantic relations are so extensive they are difficult to total. U.S. guarantees underpin European security. The United States and the European Union, which has a population of 510 million, are each other's most important trading partner. For decades, European nations and the United States have worked tightly together on issues of war, peace and trade.
Trump's comments "caused astonishment and excitement, not just in Brussels," German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier told reporters in Brussels on Monday, where he was gathering with other European foreign ministers at a previously scheduled meeting. Coming directly from a meeting with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, Steinmeier said NATO had listened to Trump's comments "with concern."
"We do expect our American partner to stick to commitments under international law and to WTO rules," Steinmeier added.
Stoltenberg is looking forward to working with Trump and his new national security team, NATO spokesman Oana Lungescu said in an emailed statement. "He is absolutely confident that the incoming U.S. administration will remain committed to NATO," she said.
The incoming U.S. president is the first American leader since World War II not to support European integration. The EU has long been considered to be in the U.S. interest, because it created a unified market for U.S. businesses, provided a bulwark against communism during the Cold War and helped quell the bloody slaughter that cost U.S. lives, among others, in the first half of the 20th century. After the breakup of the Soviet Union, the EU expanded east into formerly communist nations, a development that leaders there say helped bring rule of law and stability as they modernized their economies.
"People want their own identity, so if you ask me, others, I believe others will leave," Trump said of the European Union. "Personally, I don't think it matters much for the United States."
Trump offered mixed messages about NATO, saying that he had called it "obsolete" in the past and calling it "very unfair to the United States" that most nations were not meeting their voluntary defense spending commitments. "With that being said, NATO is very important to me," Trump said.
Steinmeier said Germany was still trying to assess what U.S. foreign policy will be.
For example, James Mattis, the retired general nominated to be Trump's defense secretary, offered straightforward support for NATO and skepticism of Russia at his confirmation hearing last week.
"We have to see what will come out for American policy," Steinmeier said.
French leaders, who face tough presidential elections in April, also appeared to be scrambling to handle the fallout. Trump allies have expressed support for the anti-EU, anti-immigrant National Front, whose leader, Marine Le Pen, is doing well in opinion polls. Le Pen lunched in the basement of the Trump Tower last week in the company of a man who has served as an informal conduit for Trump's contacts with anti-EU leaders on the continent, although the Trump transition team denied any formal meeting with her.
"The best response is European unity," said French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault. "As with the case of Brexit, the best way to defend Europe is to remain united. This is a bit of an invitation that we are making to Mr. Trump. To remain a bloc. Not to forget that the force of Europeans is in their unity."
Words versus policy
Some European leaders appeared to preserve the hope that Trump does not truly mean what he says or that his pronouncements will not be translated into policy.
Ayrault appeared to hope that Trump's Cabinet would be the true force of the presidency, saying that he looked forward to sitting down with secretary of state nominee Rex Tillerson upon his confirmation to discuss a range of issues of mutual concern to Europe and the United States.
And Luxembourg's foreign minister, Jean Asselborn, said he thought Trump might change his tune before Friday.
"One must hope that the statements of candidate Trump starting Friday will go in a different direction," Asselborn said. "If the risks are summed up, it would be very destabilizing, which is not in the interest of America."
"I don't share his prediction that there are other Brexit-type departures from the EU on the horizon," Sandro Gozi, Italy's junior minister for European Affairs, said of Trump in an interview. "The uncertainty the U.K. is in, and the difficulties which it will face during the negotiations, will make everyone understand that it's much better to stay in the EU and work to improve policies, especially economic ones."
"The most important thing is that we play it cool at the moment and wait for them to actually start working," Danish Foreign Minister Anders Samuelsen said before the Brussels meeting. "We have to wait and move away from Twitter diplomacy to real politics," he said, adding that reality could be "perhaps more difficult than what is going on on Twitter."
U.K. ready to trade
Only one leader appeared to embrace Trump's comments, and that was British Foreign Minister Boris Johnson, who said he welcomed Trump's vow to negotiate a speedy trade deal between the United States and Britain. British trade relationships are in limbo as it negotiates its exit from the European Union.
"It's very good news that the United States of America wants to do a good free-trade deal with us and wants to do it very fast, and it's great to hear that from President-elect Donald Trump," Johnson told reporters in Brussels.
Trump said he would offer the U.K. a quick and "fair" trade deal when he meets Prime Minister Theresa May shortly after taking office.
"We're gonna work very hard to get it done quickly and done properly. Good for both sides," Trump said in the Times of London interview, which was conducted by Michael Gove, a former Conservative Cabinet minister and, along with Johnson, one of the leaders of the campaign for Britain to leave the EU. "We're gonna get something done very quickly."
The U.K., which plans to start two years of negotiations to leave the European Union by the end of March, cannot strike new trade deals on its own until it has left the EU, or at least left the bloc's customs union.
Trump's stance contrasts with that of outgoing President Barack Obama, who said during the referendum campaign that Britain would be "at the back of the queue" for any trade accord if it voted to leave the bloc.
His comments on the outlook for a U.K. trade deal may also make it more attractive for Britain to leave the customs union, the trading arrangement that all EU countries belong to but which also includes non-EU members. Those favoring a clean break from the bloc want May to exit the customs union before leaving the bloc, which would free the government's hand to have trade talks but also impose costs on exporters.
35% tax on cars
Trump was less kind in the Bild interview to German industry officials, saying car manufacturers including BMW could face tariffs of up to 35 percent if they set up plants in Mexico instead of in the U.S. and try to export the cars to the U.S.
The newspaper quoted Trump as saying: "If you want to build cars in the world, then I wish you all the best. You can build cars for the United States, but for every car that comes to the USA, you will pay 35 percent tax."
"I would tell BMW that if you are building a factory in Mexico and plan to sell cars to the USA, without a 35 percent tax, then you can forget that," Trump said.
Trump has issued similar warnings, via Twitter, to Ford, GM and Toyota. But Reuters reports that the proposition of a tariff has already stoked tensions in Germany, the largest U.S. trading partner in Europe and a key political ally throughout Obama's presidency.
Such tariffs would make the American auto industry "worse, weaker and more expensive," Sigmar Gabriel, Germany's economy minister, told Bild.
Gabriel suggested Europeans should exhibit more self-confidence in dealing with Trump. "We're not weak and inferior," he said.
German automakers sold about 1.3 million vehicles in the United States last year, WardsAuto data show, making up 7.6 percent of all new vehicle sales.
German manufacturers and suppliers increased their production of cars in the United States from 214,000 to 850,000 between 2009 and 2016, according to Matthias Wissmann, head of the German Association of the Automotive Industry.
German automakers employ 33,000 people in the United States and German suppliers count another 77,000, Wissmann said.
Information for this article was contributed by Michael Birnbaum and Steven Overly of The Washington Post; by Ian Wishart, John Follain, Tony Czuczka, Peter Levring and Emma Ross-Thomas of Bloomberg News; and by Raf Casert, Kirsten Grieshaber, David Rising, Frank Jordans, Lorne Cook and Sylvie Corbet of The Associated Press.
A Section on 01/17/2017