TRANSCRIPT
United States President Donald Trump is rarely one to keep his thoughts to himself.
Now, he has deepened his rift with Europe in an interview with Politico, claiming much of the continent is decaying due to what he called weak immigration policies.
"Most European nations, they're decaying. They're decaying. My roots are in Europe, as you know, and I hate to see that happen. They're allowing people just to come in and unchecked vetted. They're no longer going to be strong nations. They'll change their ideology obviously, because the people coming in have a totally different ideology, but it's going to make them much weaker. They'll be much weaker and there'll be much different."
Mr Trump has doubled down on his recent criticisms of Europe, following the release of the new US national security strategy last week that recycled ultranationalist tropes as it warned of civilisational decline on the continent.
The strategy says a key pillar of US foreign policy will be cultivating resistance to what it called "Europe's current trajectory" from within European nations.
The 79-year-old billionaire, whose political rise to power was built on inflammatory language about migration, says Europe's policies on migrants are a disaster.
"They're coming from prisons of the Congo and many other countries. And for some reason they want to be politically correct and they don't want to send them back to where they came from."
He listed countries including Britain, France, Germany, Poland and Sweden that he says are being destroyed by migration.
He also singled out London's first Muslim mayor, Sadiq Khan, in an extraordinary attack.
"If you take a look at London, you have a mayor named Khan. He's a horrible mayor. He's an incompetent mayor, but he's a horrible, vicious, disgusting mayor. I think he's done a terrible job. London's a different place. I love London, and I hate to see it happen."
Mayor Khan responded in a separate interview with Politico, arguing the U-S president is obsessed with him and says Americans are flocking to live in London because its liberal values stand in opposition to Mr Trump's.
Former European Union ambassador to the US, João Vale de Almeida tells Channel 4 these latest statements from Mr Trump cross a line.
"I'm very sad to hear this kind of statements. I mean we understand, and we even enjoy the fact that our partners are interested in Europe. But it's one thing is to be worried or concern or happy, the other thing is to directly interfere in our political processes. Accusing our leaders and insulting our mayors and endorsing the parties in our political system which happened to be on the fringes of the political spectrum, most of them anti-European and some of them even anti-democratic. I think this is a line that should not have been crossed."
The US President's comments to Politico come one day after the leaders of Britain, France and Germany met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in London.
The leaders expressed solidarity with Ukraine and helped Mr Zelenskyy formulate a counterproposal to the Trump administration's plan to end the Russia-Ukraine war.
Mr Trump says efforts by European leaders have done little to bring about a ceasefire.
"They talk, but they don't produce, and the war just keeps going on and on Four years now, it's been going on long before I got here."
Mr Trump also reignited his criticism of President Zelenskyy.
He tells Politico that Ukraine must hold elections despite Russia's ongoing invasion and questioned whether the country is truly democratic.
"I think it's an important time to hold an election. They're using war, not to hold an election, but I would think the Ukrainian people should have that choice and maybe Zelenskyy would win. I don't know who would win, but they haven't had an election in a long time. They talk about a democracy, but it gets to a point where it's not a democracy anymore."
Elections in Ukraine were due in March 2024 but have been postponed under the imposition of martial law since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Fresh elections were included in the draft US plan to end the war.
Mr Zelenskyy says he does not fear an election and the only questions surround the logistics, as a fifth of Ukrainian territory is currently occupied by Russia.
"I will say frankly that I am ready for the elections. If there is a question that we are clinging to power, or I am personally, and therefore the war does not come to an end, this is an absolutely inadequate story."
The US President's interview leaves him increasingly at odds with U-S allies abroad.
Pope Leo XIV says he sees Donald Trump's remarks as trying to break the longstanding U-S alliance with Europe.
"Parts of it that that I have seen make a huge change in what was for many, many years a true alliance between Europe and the United States. The remarks that are made about Europe also in interviews recently I think are trying to break apart what I think needs to be a very important alliance today and in the future."
