[D66] Germany, France criticize Trump’s immigration ban

[A.O.]

"European capitalism does not represent a kinder, more reasonable 
alternative to Trump. Its record underscores that Trump’s reckless 
policies during his first week in office are not the product of Trump 
personally, or even the deep decay of American capitalism, but of the 
contradictions of world capitalism as a whole. This is the driving force 
of the social and political collapse that has led to the imperialist war 
drive and the international victimization of immigrants and foreigners, 
of which Trump is the most finished and noxious expression."

Germany, France criticize Trump’s immigration ban
By Alex Lantier
31 January 2017
wsws.org

Amid growing protests across the United States and internationally 
against US President Donald Trump’s order denying access to the United 
States to travelers from seven Muslim countries, German and French 
officials criticized the ban this weekend. On Saturday, newly installed 
German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel and his French counterpart, 
Jean-Marc Ayrault, pledged to raise the issue in future talks with Rex 
Tillerson, Trump’s nominee to be US Secretary of State, once he takes 
office.

The ban “can only worry us,” Ayrault declared. “We have signed 
international obligations, so welcoming refugees fleeing war and 
oppression forms part of our duties … There are many other issues that 
worry us. This is why Sigmar and I also discussed what we are going to 
do. When our colleague, Tillerson, is officially appointed, we will both 
contact him.”

Gabriel claimed that Trump’s policies broke with Western traditions of 
offering refuge to the persecuted: “Love thy neighbor is part of this 
tradition, the act of helping others. This unites us, we Westerners. And 
I think that this remains a common foundation that we share with the 
United States, one we aim to promote.”

Trump’s immigration ban is unquestionably reactionary and 
anti-democratic, underscoring the rapid move in the United States 
towards police-state forms of rule. Nonetheless, the criticisms of Trump 
from Berlin and Paris are hypocritical to the core. They aim to shield 
the European Union (EU) from growing mass anger over the persecution of 
Muslims and immigrants, and prepare to assert the imperialist interests 
of a European alliance led by Berlin and Paris against Washington.

Having joined Washington in arming Islamist militias in civil wars for 
regime change in Libya and Syria, the EU powers are implicated in the 
loss of hundreds of thousands of lives and the turning of tens of 
millions into refugees—over a million of whom fled to Europe in horrific 
conditions. Gabriel’s fatuous invocation of a policy of “love thy 
neighbor” notwithstanding, the EU’s treatment of refugees was as 
thuggish and politically criminal as Trump’s.

As the refugee crisis escalated, the EU canceled rescue operations in 
the Mediterranean under the Mare Nostrum program, hoping to deter 
migrants from coming to Europe with reports of mass drownings in the 
Mediterranean. Canceling the program would “probably lead to a higher 
number of deaths,” EU border agency Frontex wrote in a paper applauding 
that decision, since it anticipated that this meant “significantly fewer 
migrants will attempt to cross the Mediterranean.” Over 5,000 refugees 
drowned in the Mediterranean last year.

Refugees who arrived in Europe were herded into detention camps across 
Europe, blocked from going to countries of their choice, and targeted 
with arbitrary expulsion orders in Germany and other EU member states.

Responding to criticisms of Trump, Italian Foreign Minister Angelino 
Alfano told the Corriere della Sera that Europe “is not in a good 
position to give opinions about the choices of others. Or is it that we 
want to forget that we too erect walls in Europe?”

Meanwhile, far-right politicians across Europe hailed Trump’s ban. “No 
more immigration from any Islamic country is exactly what we need ... 
Islam and freedom are incompatible,” said Geert Wilders of Party for 
Freedom in the Netherlands, while Matteo Salvini of Italy’s Northern 
League declared, “An invasion is under way, it needs to be blocked.”

European capitalism does not represent a kinder, more reasonable 
alternative to Trump. Its record underscores that Trump’s reckless 
policies during his first week in office are not the product of Trump 
personally, or even the deep decay of American capitalism, but of the 
contradictions of world capitalism as a whole. This is the driving force 
of the social and political collapse that has led to the imperialist war 
drive and the international victimization of immigrants and foreigners, 
of which Trump is the most finished and noxious expression.

European politicians who are criticizing Trump’s militaristic and 
anti-democratic politicians are also defending Germany’s moves to 
re-militarize its foreign policy, and France’s effectively permanent 
state of emergency, which has been used to assault social protests 
against austerity.

More lies behind their cynical and carefully calibrated criticisms of 
the Trump administration, however, than just a reaction to anti-Trump 
protests, aiming to defuse them. As Trump’s reactionary rampage 
discredits Washington internationally, they are seeking to better 
position the leading powers on the European continent—primarily Germany 
and France—to benefit.

 From a summit of Southern European countries in Lisbon on Saturday, 
French President François Hollande called for European opposition to 
Trump’s policies—not only on the refugee ban, but over a broad range of 
subjects, underscoring the EU powers’ sharp dissatisfaction with US 
foreign policy.

“When the president of the United States mentions climate to say that he 
is not convinced of the usefulness of [the Paris climate] accord, we 
must respond,” Hollande said. “When he adds protectionist measures, 
which could destabilize entire economies, not simply European economies 
but those of the world, we must respond and when he refuses the arrival 
of refugees, where Europe has done its duty, we must respond.”

Hollande also attacked Trump’s attempt to split the EU by holding up 
Britain’s exit from the EU as a model for all of Europe. “When there are 
declarations coming from the president of the United States about 
Europe, and when he talks about Brexit as a model for other countries, I 
believe that we have to respond,” Hollande said. “We must clearly state 
our positions and launch a dialogue with firmness about what we think.”

Significantly, Hollande did not criticize Trump’s orders to the Pentagon 
to prepare for war with the United States’ “near peer competitors,” 
including nuclear-armed Russia and China and, potentially, the European 
powers themselves. On military matters, the French president indicated 
that he hoped a deal could be reached with Washington. Referring to 
Syria, Iraq and Russia, he said that “all of that should be the subject 
of dialogue” with Trump.

Nonetheless, Berlin, Paris and other allied EU states are unquestionably 
moving to make broad inroads in US imperialism’s commercial and 
strategic positions internationally—a strategy that can only lead, 
sooner rather than later, to a potentially catastrophic military clash 
with Washington.

Speaking to the German financial paper Handelsblatt, Gabriel laid out an 
aggressive German-led commercial strategy aimed at the United States 
internationally. “If Trump launches a trade war with Asia and South 
America, this also opens up chances for us,” Gabriel said, adding: 
“Europe should rapidly work on a new Asian foreign policy … If US 
protectionism produces a situation in which new opportunities for Europe 
open up in all of Asia, we must intervene.”

Gabriel added that Brexit offered Berlin and Paris an opportunity to 
refashion the EU in order to strengthen their power inside it. “We also 
have the opportunity to develop the cooperation of a group inside the 
EU—above all, the [euro] currency union—and then integrate a second ring 
of EU states more weakly,” he said. “That would also very much reduce 
the tensions inside Europe and really strengthen core Europe.”

A major target of a “core Europe” dominated by Berlin, in alliance with 
Paris, would be the working class in Europe itself. In an interview to 
the Daily Telegraph, Jürgen Stark, a former vice president of Germany’s 
Bundesbank, proposed to expel Italy, Greece and other countries from the 
euro zone in order to strengthen a “core” euro zone: Germany, Holland, 
Belgium, Luxembourg and France. Stark hoped this would allow for tougher 
monetary policies and force politicians to implement even more drastic 
austerity programs.

“As long as the [European Central Bank] gives a signal in its operations 
that ‘we are the backstop’ and ‘we will prevent country A or country B 
from becoming insolvent,’ there will be no structural reforms,” Stark 
said. “The politicians don’t feel the heat.”