Bolton, who was also U.S. ambassador to the United Nations for President George W. Bush, was unimpressed. “He is wrong,” he retorted. “He (Albares) has also spoken about the need for a European Union army — to which all I can say is good luck with that.
“It’s not like Europe is filled with strong political leaders at the moment, or that the capability exists that they can handle a number of crises entirely on their own. It was a key Soviet goal during the Cold War to split the NATO alliance, and one reason among many that that didn’t work is that we didn’t let the divisions come between us. It would be a cruel irony if after the Cold War we did it to ourselves.”
Bolton also opined on what he sees as Europe’s lack of seriousness about China, as Trump arrived in Beijing for his long-awaited meeting with President Xi Jinping.
“While Europeans worry about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, they worry less about China’s role supporting Russia, and they don’t worry so much about a potential Chinese attack on Taiwan, although I think the things are increasingly linked together — and I think the war in the Gulf right now with Iran is with a principal Russian-Chinese surrogate,” Bolton said. “I’m not sure that Europe as a whole thinks beyond the North Atlantic.”
Chrystia Freeland, the former Canadian deputy prime minister and current economic adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, also issued a warning about Europe’s posture on Trump’s visit to China.
In a separate interview at the summit, she told POLITICO that the rift in the relationship between the U.S. and its European allies “makes it that much harder for a collective position when it comes to China.” She added: “It’s very hard to do without the United States being part of that effort.”