Trump Holds First Cabinet Meeting

In a cabinet meeting this week, President Trump spoke starkly about the E.U. The bloc, he said, “was formed in order to screw the U.S.” Then he said he was preparing to hit Europe with 25 percent tariffs.

Trump and his loyalists increasingly appear to consider America’s traditional allies in Europe as adversaries not just on trade, but on nearly everything, European officials and analysts say.

But it is unclear where that falls on a spectrum from indifference to open hostility, especially as Trump moves to align himself away from NATO and toward Russia. U.S. and Russian officials will meet to discuss restoring embassy staff in each other’s countries, Russia’s foreign minister said.

European leaders are scrambling to assess and mitigate the damage. Prime Minister Keir Starmer of Britain hopes to persuade Trump not to abandon Ukraine when they meet at the White House today. But President Emmanuel Macron of France made little traction on his own trip, and Friedrich Merz, likely to be Germany’s next chancellor, has expressed strong doubts about the trans-Atlantic relationship.