Donald Trump will keep his vow to deport millions of undocumented migrants from the United States, he said in an interview to be broadcast November 13, 2016, saying as many as three million could be removed after he takes office. “What we are going to do is get the people that are criminal and have criminal records, gang members, drug dealers, where a lot of these people, probably two million, it could be even three million, we are getting them out of our country or we are going to incarcerate,” Trump said in an excerpt released ahead of broadcast by CBS’s 60 Minutes program.
/ AFP PHOTO / MANDEL NGAN
by Bryan McManus
BRUSSELS, Belgium (AFP) – Sharp differences surfaced Monday as EU foreign ministers debated ambitious plans to boost the bloc’s military role, amid fears Donald Trump’s election jeopardises Washington’s historic security guarantee.
US president-elect Trump has shocked Europe by casting doubt over US commitments to NATO unless European allies increase defence spending, sparking calls for the European Union to press ahead on its own.
Britain has long opposed any such plans as undermining NATO, but after its shock June Brexit vote, France and Germany jumped in with plans to boost defence cooperation that have now gained extra urgency with Trump’s election victory.
“There is a need to strengthen our security profile, it’s what our citizens need,” EU foreign affairs head Federica Mogherini said as she went into an EU foreign ministers meeting in Brussels to discuss the recommendations, which include an EU military headquarters and a central planning unit.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said he expected the ministers, joined by their defence colleagues, to approve the proposals and so show that in an “increasingly uncertain world (Europe)… is able to take important decisions for its security.”
“This is an essential step forward, we will re-affirm in the final statement our ambition of strategic autonomy,” Ayrault said, citing Mogherini’s catch phrase.
However British Defence Secretary Michael Fallon bluntly told the EU to stop “dreaming”.
“Instead of planning expensive new headquarters or dreaming of an European army, what Europe needs to do now is to spend more on its own defence, that is the best possible approach to the Trump Presidency,” Fallon said.
Trump election ‘good opportunity’
British foreign secretary Boris Johnson, a leading Brexit supporter, said Trump’s election offered a “moment of opportunity” and they should wait to see what he actually wants.
“Donald Trump, as I’ve said before, is a dealmaker,” he said, warning: “You shouldn’t undermine the fundamental security architecture that’s looked after us for the last 70 years.”
Johnson had snubbed special talks on Trump’s election hosted by Mogherini over dinner on Sunday, saying the meeting risked sending the wrong message to the new president.
Sources in Germany meanwhile said the ruling coalition is backing Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, a sharp Trump critic, as the country’s next president.
Steinmeier, 60, warned a day after Trump’s shock election that transatlantic relations would become “more difficult”.
Mogherini insisted after Sunday’s session that ministers backed a “very strong partnership” with Trump, but that the EU would have to move on with its own plans nonetheless.
EU defence “is obviously one thing that was on the table before the US elections and has even more reasons to stay on our table today” following Trump’s election, she said.
The EU has no military arm but has mounted a series of combined civilian and military operations such as in central Africa or to combat piracy off the Horn of Africa.
Mogherini’s Global Strategy, a year in the planning and published in June, proposes that these operations be brought under a single headquarters based in Brussels — home also to NATO.
EU diplomats say Brexit and now Trump’s election have put defence firmly on the agenda, given that nuclear-armed Britain counts as the bloc’s most powerful military power and that the United States through NATO has guaranteed Europe’s security since 1949.
They also say that if Brexit-bound Britain has been most opposed to a larger military role, other member states — of which 22 of the EU’s 28 also belong to NATO — are now being forced to come forward with their reservations.
For example, Poland and the Baltic states want Trump to stick by commitments to increase NATO’s eastern presence so as to deter a more aggressive Russia.
The election over the weekend of Moscow-friendly presidents in Moldova and in EU member Bulgaria will likely heighten concerns on that front.