MOSCOW, October 14. /TASS/. US President Donald Trump sees that European leaders are subservient to him, ready to jump when he says so, Oleg Karpovich, deputy rector of the Diplomatic Academy of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said.
"The Sharm el-Sheikh summit showed that Donald Trump is a kind of director of the events, he has favorite and unloved actors. This is why most European leaders are trying to win Trump's attention and favor, but for some, that’s a losing battle," Karpovich told TASS. "There are several European politicians Trump seems to like. These are the prime minister of Hungary and the prime minister of Italy. Of course, the Turkish president is on his good side. There are European leaders, for example, the French president, the German chancellor and the British prime minister, to whom Trump is lukewarm."
He said Trump knows he’s got Europe basically under his thumb. "This is why Trump behaves like the master of this ‘puppet theater,’ he can use this or that politician. They have no choice but to obey," Karpovich said. "This is the current paradigm of interaction between the United States and its European satellites. The equal relations that [former US President] Joe Biden tried to cultivate are nowhere to be found. Every European leader gets exactly as much as the American president sees fit to give him."
