Key European allies of the United States are reportedly no longer taking President Donald Trump’s threats seriously. After the president exploded at British Prime Minister Boris Johnson last month, apparently slamming down the phone on the U.K. leader, Business Insider reveals that foreign leaders are moving ahead with their own plans, despite Trump’s threats.
Recently, Johnson agreed to a deal with Chinese telecom company Huawei despite threats from Trump that the U.S. would withdraw from an intelligence-sharing relationship with the U.K. if he went through with the deal. The U.K. was reportedly warned prior to making the deal that “Donald Trump is watching closely.”
After hearing about the decision from Johnson during a phone call last month, Trump reportedly flew into an “apoplectic” rage and slammed down the phone. Now, it appears that other European countries are taking a similar approach when dealing with the U.S. leader.
Germany, led by Angela Merkel, appears ready to make a deal with the Chinese company, as well. After seeing Trump’s failure to follow through with his threats aimed at the U.K., it appears that other world leaders don’t feel pressure to take the president’s threats seriously, reports Business Insider . Several other countries appear poised to follow Johnson’s lead.
While Trump has argued that a deal with Huawei could compromise Western security, German leaders said they decided to back the deal because “state actors with sufficient resources can infiltrate the network of any equipment maker.”
Prominent Republicans in the U.S. have noted the failure of Trump to effectively pressure allies. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich called it “the biggest strategic defeat for the United States since the early days of World War II.”
“I think people have got to wake up and understand this is a huge failure of our government bureaucracies to respond to a challenge we’ve seen coming,” he said.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that the U.S. and the U.K. would maintain a strong relationship and no changes would be made to the intelligence-sharing deal that the two countries share, despite Trump’s anger and threats.
“I am very confident that our two nations will find a way to work together to resolve this difference,” Pompeo said.
He added that while the Chinese Communist Party was “the central threat of our time,” and any deals with Huawei by U.S. allies threatened the security of Western communications, the U.S. would stand by its allies.