Trump Drives EU to Extreme Anti-Espionage Measure
The European Commission is issuing burner phones to officials traveling to the United States amid fears of espionage in Trump's America.
It's the kind of security measure typically saved for trips to China or the Ukraine, where the fear of IT surveillance is high. But three European Commissioners will test out burner phones and basic laptops at International Monetary Fund and World Bank meetings in Washington next week, sources told the Financial Times.
The move from the European Commission, the primary executive arm of the European Union, marks a new era of American-European relations, which have all but dissipated since Donald Trump took office in January. Last month, he slapped Europe with 20 percent tariffs, which he later reduced to 10 percent for 90 days. He has falsely claimed the EU was formed solely to 'create a unified force against' the United States, he abandoned Ukraine in the face of Russia, and he threatened to withdraw American security guarantees to the continent altogether—single-handedly dismantling an alliance that has shaped the global order since Word War II, and simultaneously embracing Vladimir Putin's alliance.
'The transatlantic alliance is over,' an EU official told the Financial Times.
The Commission did not confirm the issuing of burner phones to the Financial Times, but it did say that all EU officials traveling to the U.S. were told to turn off their phones and hide them in 'special sleeves' at the border amid a rise in phone seizures from border agents in recent weeks. A number of tourists and visiting academics have been turned away for having criticism of the White House on their phone.
More than half of Europeans now consider Trump an 'enemy of Europe,' according to a survey conducted across nine European countries last month. Thirty-nine percent of respondents said they thought Trump 'acted like a dictator,' and only one in 10 respondents believed they could rely on American security and defense if armed conflict arises in the near future, yet another indication of dwindling trust in Trump's America.
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