The European Union’s current course will only hurt themselves…
The news is full of threats from the European Union about requiring Americans to obtain visas should they choose to visit any of its 28 member nations. The reports say this is a protest against President Trump and his requirement that visitors from five countries in the EU must acquire visas in order to visit the US. What gets missed in these news stories, however, is the fact that travel restrictions on the five countries are not part of Trump’s mandate. This limitation was in place long ago under the Obama administration.
This same threat was raised last April by the EU. So why is it now being touted as a response to Trump? Have the leaders of the EU gone insane? If the leaders of the EU wanted to hasten the collapse of their organization, they couldn’t have picked a better way to do it.
European Union President Donald Tusk listed the Trump administration as a threat alongside China, Russia, terrorism and radical Islam, adding that “worrying declarations by the new American administration all make our future highly unpredictable. The change in Washington puts the European Union in a difficult situation; with the new administration seeming to put into question the last 70 years of American foreign policy,” Tusk said in a letter to EU members.
The astonishing break from diplomatic practice stems from reasons that range from the personal to the broadly geopolitical.
The feeling is not universal among members of the European Commission, the administrative body of the commission balked at the prospect. “It is important that the European economy does not become a victim,” the European Tourism Association (ETOA) said in a statement. “The business of accommodating US and Canadian visitors is an enormously important industry for Europe. We actually sell them services worth approximately 50 billion Euros ($56.87 billion). Millions of jobs are dependent on it. German defense minister Ursula von der Leyen said EU security depends on NATO and the US. Germany, as “a great nation in the center of Europe,” would have to be “more self-reliant on security issues.” Without the protection and power of the US, the EU is a military paper tiger.
There are good reasons why the US retains visa requirements for those coming here from Bulgaria, Romania, Poland, Croatia and Cyprus. There are differences among those countries, but it boils down to the fact that US immigration and security officials can’t certify the traveler identity and security clearance processes of those nations. Without such certification, the US won’t offer visitors from those nations automatic visa-less entry as a way of trying to prevent entry to would-be terrorists or criminals.
The priority of the US President is to protect the citizens of the United States, not to kowtow to the political pressures of a spiteful EU politician. If the EU takes this direction, it will only cause harm to itself.
My advice to the European Commission is the following: “ When you are already in a hole, stop digging.”
Jon Harris is an OpsLens contributor and former Army NCO, civilian law enforcement officer, and defense contractor with over 30 years in the law enforcement community. He holds a B.S. in Government and Politics and an M.S. in Criminal Justice.
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