Brexit Dilemma: Is Trump Plotting Against Europe?

By Nawal Sayed

CAIRO, March 14 (SEE) - Few hours after the UK Parliament had refused the Brexit deal proposed by Premier Theresa May late Wednesday, Natalie Nougayrède, UK's Guardian newspaper's columnist, wrote an article accusing US President Donald Trump of plotting against Europe.

"Trump and his outriders want Europe weak and pided. Brexit will deliver some of that," Nougayrède wrote.

[caption id="attachment_40760" align="aligncenter" width="816"] Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs Stef Blok and Minister of Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation Sigrid Kaag visit a ferry terminal to review if cargo can be transported quickly via Dutch ports after Brexit in Vlaardingen, Netherlands March 13, 2019. REUTERS/Piroschka van de Wouw[/caption]

She believes that if Brexit is halted, both the UK and the rest of Europe will reap the benefit – and Donald Trump, for one, will suffer a defeat.

"The sect of Brexit has passionate adherents far beyond Britain’s hardline leavers. It includes vocal and influential preachers in the Trumpian world of Washington – and the reality of Trump is having a deep impact on Europe, with the Brexit mess a key part of it all."

In her opinion column, she admits that she is so attached to the EU and to a value-based transatlantic relationship. "It felt like a parallel universe."

She noted that Trump was much more worried about the “anti-American” sentiment found in Italy’s Five Star Movement (a hodgepodge of left- and rightwing populism) than about democratic backsliding in Poland and Hungary.

[caption id="attachment_40762" align="aligncenter" width="788"] Pro-Brexit protesters demonstrate outside the Houses of Parliament in London, Britain March 13, 2019. REUTERS/Hannah Mckay[/caption]

This adds up to an understanding of the EU and its principles as something that the US would do well to undermine, according to Nougayrède's column published Thursday.

"Brexit, then, is seen as helpful in depriving Europe of any leverage to act (whether on the climate crisis or on multilateralism at large) in ways that might contradict a specific, narrow understanding of US national interests," Nougayrède added.

"If Brexit isn’t somehow stopped, the Trumpian-Brexiteer axis will come to determine much of what unfolds in our part of the world – and it won’t be pretty."

Britain will most likely get the European Union's approval for a Brexit delay if it asks, but the bloc will not change their stalled porce deal during that time or negotiate future ties, European lawmaker Danuta Hubner said on Thursday.

[caption id="attachment_40763" align="aligncenter" width="716"] Anti-Brexit protesters demonstrate outside the Houses of Parliament in London, Britain March 13, 2019. REUTERS/Hannah Mckay[/caption]

UK's May is preparing to push her lawmakers to vote again next week on the EU porce deal, which they have already rejected twice, before the current exit date of March 29.

In 2016, before being elected as US's president, Trump posted a very controversial tweet saying that "They will soon be calling me MR. BREXIT!"

In fact, there was no explanation for that tweet and till this moment nobody knows what Trump meant.

In 2017, Trump said "Brexit will be a great thing and other countries should follow Britain out of the European Union."

Speaking in an interview with The Times of London newspaper in 2017, five days before his inauguration, Trump described himself as a big fan of Britain and endorsed 2016's vote to leave the European Union.