Trump says Europe ‘destroying’ itself

European nations need to change course on trade, economics and immigration, or face ruin, according to the US president

European nations need to reverse a decade of what he called “horrible” decisions to stop “destroying” themselves, US President Donald Trump has said.

Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Wednesday, Trump said that while the US wants to see Europe succeed, “it is not going in the right direction.”

He blamed European nations’ uncontrolled migration policies and what he called the “green new scam,” a term he uses to describe green energy policies, arguing that a focus on wind power has driven up energy prices in the region.

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“The consequences of such destructive policies have been stark, including lower economic growth, lower standards of living, lower birth rates, more socially disruptive migration, more vulnerability to hostile foreign adversaries,” he said.

European countries need to “get out of the culture that they’ve created” over the past decade, Trump said.

“It’s horrible what they’re doing to themselves, they’re destroying themselves. We want strong allies, not seriously weakened ones,” he said.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio reposted Trump’s remarks on X shortly after, arguing that if the Europeans do not change their cultural trajectory, “they will destroy themselves.”

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The Trump administration’s latest National Security Strategy, published in December, also warned that Europe was facing “civilizational erasure.” The document blamed efforts by the EU and international organizations to undermine “political liberty” and free speech, and to institute detrimental migration policies.

Moscow has also repeatedly highlighted the EU’s decline. In December, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that after the fall of the USSR, Russia expected to be welcomed into the “civilized Western family,” but that “civilization there is nonexistent, and degradation is all there is.”