Europeans Recognize Trumpism for What It Is

I called Asselborn to ask him what he thought about all of this. He apologized for his English (“I have to speak Luxembourgish in the morning, read the papers in German, talk to diplomats in French and now to you in English. It’s a lot.”) and was somewhat bemused by the fuss, but agreed to a brief interview. The following transcript has been condensed and edited for clarity.

Anne Applebaum: So what happened?

Jean Asselborn: Nothing, really. The U.S. ambassador in Luxembourg told us that Pompeo has a meeting with [NATO Secretary General] Jens Stoltenberg on the 14th, and that he would like to stop by Luxembourg too. We were waiting to hear details. And then Sunday evening we were told Pompeo will not come.

Applebaum: Do you know why?

Asselborn: Nobody spoke with me, but The New York Times seems to think it was my comments, so that must be the reason. We also heard that in Brussels they were planning to meet with him, but without any press conference or public statement; maybe that bothered him too? I did call Trump Brandstifter, pyromane—I think it means “pyromaniac” in English. From my side, this is correct, and I will not correct this.

Applebaum: Had you met Pompeo before?

Asselborn: I met him once in Washington and saw him several times in Europe. It was never easy with him.

Applebaum: What does that mean?

Asselborn: I heard Trump twice at the UN General Assembly, both times speaking about this wrong idea of patriotism. It was—ugh—awful. In the 1930s, in Europe, we learned where this wrong patriotism can go. We never understood it. A big majority in the EU never understood it. But Pompeo was always repeating this too.

Applebaum: He was an emissary of Trumpism?

Asselborn: He was somebody who defended the positions of Trump. Very difficult cooperation with him. Pompeo is really one of the last pillars of Trump. In a week, it will be better.

Applebaum: What lasting damage did the Trump administration do?

Asselborn: I am not defending Iran. On human rights, Iran is catastrophic. But we negotiated with them for 13 years, and finally in 2015 we got the deal that Iran could not build nuclear weapons. The idea was to engage and change this regime. I was twice in Iran, in 2015 and 2016—young people expected something from the free world; now that is all destroyed. Trump destroyed this. He destroyed solidarity with the Paris climate agreement. He did all of these aggressive things on trade. He left the World Health Organization.

I don’t know of one positive thing on foreign policy that has come out of EU-U.S. cooperation during the past four years. I don’t see one single positive thing. It would be healthy to have again a president and a secretary of state who understand the past, the history of the European Union, who know that before World War II we had exactly this wrong sort of patriotism, nationalism, racism. The EU was created to help us to overcome this wrong patriotism.