Trump possibly planning to destroy NATO, European Union: Analyst

US President Donald Trump is possibly planning to destroy the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the European Union, says a former US Senate policy adviser and diplomat.

James Jatras, who is a specialist in international relations and legislative politics in Washington, DC, made the remarks in an interview with Press TV on Wednesday while commenting on a statement of Trump.

Trump said on Wednesday that the European Union is "possibly as bad as China" on trade, as possible trade wars loom with both the Asian giant as well as longtime allies in Europe and Canada.

Trump has reportedly also written to several NATO allies, asking them to increase their share of the costs for defense of the alliance and warning the United States is losing patience.

Trump sent letters last month to leaders of NATO allies including Germany, Belgium, Norway and Canada, ratcheting up tensions ahead of the NATO summit in Brussels next week, according to The New York Times.

The US president highlighted long-standing complaints that other countries are not contributing enough to NATO and that the US is bearing too much of the alliance's load.

PressTV-Trump warns NATO: US losing patience

Trump sent letters to leaders of NATO allies, ratcheting up tensions ahead of the NATO summit in Brussels next week.

“I think with regard to Europe, there is very interesting dynamic going on. Let’s remember that the countries which make up the European Union are almost exactly the same as the countries making up NATO. There are some differences but it’s basically the same group of countries,” Jatras said.  

“And the same group of countries that he is telling that we need to have more balanced trade relationship with; he is also saying on the NATO side that ‘you need to take care of your defense. You can’t keep preloading on us,’” he stated.

“With the upcoming NATO summit, all these differences are going to become all the more sharper. And some people even suggest that this is deliberate ploy on the part of Trump to destroy NATO and possibly the European Union. And if that’s the case he really is some kind of a genius,” he added.

PressTV-Trump: EU 'possibly as bad as China' on trade

Europe is "possibly as bad as China" on trade, US President Donald Trump said in an interview with Fox News.

In his earlier remarks, Jatras said, “I think President Trump is approaching trade policy as he said he would do during the campaign from the position of American interest and American producers and American workers first. I don’t think it is particularly directed against any particular country although China is the country that we have the biggest trade deficit with.”

“Now he has made it clear or at least he offered in principle to reduce tariffs and barriers to zero if that would be neutral and reciprocal. He did that knowing that these other countries as he said had been eating our lunch for decades would never accept such a thing. They used to the idea of essentially free access into the American market while they protect their markets from American goods,” he argued.

“So right now he set the cat among the pigeons. We will see what the result is. I don’t think it will result in a trade way but I do think there will be some very serious bilateral negotiations come up,” the analyst noted.

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