Why 'your hair is on fire’ if you’re a European at Davos this year
Heading into the Inauguration, President-elect Donald Trump is making Russian President Vladimir Putin happy while causing a lot of distress for America’s European allies.
Geopolitical expert Ian Bremmer explained Trump’s apparent affinity for Putin and the fraying US-Europe alliance when he joined Yahoo Finance anchor Alexis Christoforous and Editor-in-Chief Andy Serwer at the 2017 World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
“Interestingly, if Hillary Clinton had become president, the US-Russia relationship would be much worse,” Bremmer said, adding that under President Barack Obama the relations reached the worst point in 30 years. “As soon as Trump comes in, despite the fact that he’s reluctantly admitted that … it probably was the Russians that engaged in the hacking [of the DNC and Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta], he still is saying ‘I’m gonna work with the Russians.'”
Bremmer highlighted Trump’s recent statement that the incoming US president sees Putin and German Chancellor Angela Merkel in the same kind of way. Asked by the Sunday Times whom he would trust more, Trump replied: “I start off trusting both — but let’s see how long that lasts. It may not last long at all.”
Bremmer said that elite Europeans — such as those at Davos — are not liking what they hear.
“If you’re sitting here as a European in Davos, your hair is on fire when you hear stuff like that. So clearly the US-Russia relationship will be a 180-degree flip the day that Trump becomes president,” Bremmer said. “But Russia’s still going to be a risk, and they’re going to be a risk because they’re still going to be undermining the French establishment, the Dutch establishment in their elections, the German establishment. You know who else is gonna do that? Donald Trump, who just came out and said, ‘you know what? Not only do I support Brexit, I think other countries should leave Europe too.’
In the same Sunday Times interview, Trump asserted that Merkel made a “catastrophic mistake” by accepting waves of refugees, that the European Union is “Basically a vehicle for Germany,” that the “UK was so smart” to exit the EU, and that he believes other countries will follow.
“The transatlantic relationship is the most important global alliance in the world, underpinning the American-led order since 1945, and Trump is saying, ‘not only do I not care about Europe but countries should leave,’” Bremmer said. “Putin really likes that.”
Asked about upcoming elections in Germany, possibly Italy, France, and the Netherlands this year, Bremmer said that “France is a big deal,” especially with the incoming Trump administration indicating support for far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen and Russia setting up RT.com in France to influence public opinion.
“The potential for Le Pen to win, which today if you asked any Frenchman here at Davos, they’d say ‘There’s no way.’ … But I wouldn’t be so certain,” Bremmer said. “And if Le Pen wins that is really the beginning of the unwind of the EU. I’m not saying it’s 2017, but that’s a very different Europe.”
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