European leaders may not like Trump but he is infinitely better than Obama on things that matter

Edward Lucus:
Donald Trump’s visit next year is already prompting a frenzy of self-righteous indignation. Politicians are competing to explain how much they dislike the American president and how firmly they will boycott him. Mr Trump epitomises everything the British chatterati dislike. He is foul-mouthed, incompetent, lecherous, reckless, thin-skinned and doltishly ignorant to boot. In every imaginable respect, in fact, he compares deplorably with his articulate, cosmopolitan and scrupulous predecessor.

That approach is based on abundant evidence. It echoes in Paris, Brussels, Berlin and many other capitals of liberal-minded conventional wisdom. But as you head further east, another picture emerges. Startlingly for those who believe that Mr Trump is a Russian puppet, his administration is actually rather popular in the countries that live in the Kremlin’s shadow. Barack Obama’s administration is remembered there as aloof, preachy and inconsistent.

For the authorities in places such as Budapest and Warsaw, Mr Trump’s election was excellent news. Hostility towards migrants, economic protectionism and a disrespectful approach to political convention are no longer taboo. Headstrong politicians such as Viktor Orbán, Hungary’s prime minister, or Jarosław Kaczynski, the ruling party’s chief in Poland, can now argue that they are merely taking the same line as the leader of the free world.

Mr Trump’s rapturously received speech in Warsaw this year vehemently defended national sovereignty and freedom but barely mentioned democracy. Responding to what conservative Poles see as the European Union’s bossy secularism, he decried the (unnamed) forces that sought to “erase the bonds of culture, faith and tradition”.

Even those who dislike Mr Trump’s politics are happy with his administration’s help in defending them against the Kremlin. America is selling Patriot missiles to Poland and has deployed a deterrent force there. US special forces are in the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, working with local reservists and others to prepare resistance in the event of a Russian invasion. American military ties with non-Nato Sweden and Finland have never been stronger.

In Washington, Congress showers money on European defence, not just in bolstering the military deterrent but also for counter-propaganda and other softer forms of security.
...
That contrasts sharply with the Obama-era White House, where America’s European allies frequently struggled to get a hearing and senior officials all too often pooh-poohed their concerns. Mr Obama’s disastrous “reset” of relations with Russia in 2009 sacrificed allies’ interests in the illusory hope of a rapprochement with the Kremlin. His administration abruptly cancelled a hard-fought missile-defence base in Poland, and did so on September 17, the anniversary of the Soviet invasion in 1939. As that woeful timing suggests, the State Department was in a mess then too. John Kerry, the former secretary of state, preferred personal diplomatic crusades to reforming the dysfunctional bureaucracy he bequeathed to Rex Tillerson. The Obama administration also fiercely resisted congressional efforts to impose sanctions on Russia.
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Trump has also forced the Europeans to contribute more to their own security by telling them to spend money on defense or face less protection.  They are spending the money They should have been spending all along.
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We may find Mr Trump aesthetically and morally reprehensible. But in many respects that directly concern us and our allies, his administration is still markedly better than its predecessor.
In other words, they may be offended by the noise surrounding Trump and his blunt style but the substance of his agenda is making them safer from threat by Russia and Islamic terrorists.

This is the second such article I have seen in the British press about Trump that focuses on the real world effect of Trump as opposed to the style he uses to convey his positions.  It is a conclusion I came to in my growing respect for his administration since I was a reluctant supporter.  At some point, hopefully, many in the rest of the US will catch up to the facts and ignore the noise.

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