Throughout Donald Trump’s first term, the president had an odd habit of arguing that the European Union came together as part of an anti-American initiative. The Republican never explained why he believed this or how he even arrived at such a conclusion, but he peddled the false claim quite a bit.
As his second term unfolds, he’s picking up where he left off.
A couple of weeks ago, for example, at the first White House Cabinet meeting of the year, Trump declared that the European Union “was formed in order to screw the United States.” The president added, “I mean, look, let’s be honest. The European Union was formed in order to screw the United States. That’s the purpose of it.”
His use of the “let’s be honest” phrase suggested Trump perceived his comments as candid, but he clearly had no idea what he was talking about. In fact, soon after, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, who ran the European Council during Trump’s first term, stepped up to explain reality, though that message apparently didn’t make its way to the Oval Office.
On the contrary, in a social media message this week, the American president wrote that the European Union “was formed for the sole purpose of taking advantage of the United States.” An hour later, the Republican echoed the sentiment, condemning “the polluted thinking of the European Union, which was formed for the primary purpose of ‘screwing’ the United States of America.”
The historical record on this is unambiguous. Kevin Kruse, a historian at Princeton University, wrote a piece responding to Trump’s rhetoric and explained that the president’s characterization “is 100% backwards.” At every stage of its creation and evolution, the European Union was designed to facilitate American foreign policy goals and to protect American interests from the pressures of the Soviet Union. Its origins and evolution were, in fact, closely tied to the greatest foreign policy initiative of the post-World War II era — the Marshall Plan. … At every step of the way, the European Union was understood — by Americans and by everyone else — as a measure that was promoted and perfected with the full support of the United States of America.
This support was bipartisan and enduring — at least until Trump came along. With this in mind, Kruse described the president’s claim as “deeply stupid.” The question then becomes who put this absurdity in Trump’s head in the first place. I won’t pretend to know the answer, though there can be no doubt that seeing an American repeatedly and publicly rebuke the European Union is exactly what Russia’s Vladimir Putin wants.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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