Analysis by Tim Lister, CNN (Updated 0835 GMT (1635 HKT) July 22, 2018)
US President Donald Trump swept through Europe like a hurricane. He asked why his country was obliged to defend its allies, carped about «unfair» trade practices, blasted the UK and Germany as weak on migration and suggested President Vladimir Putin was as credible as America’s own intelligence agencies when it came to Russian hacking.
Trump reprised his role as a cheerleader for Brexit and complained that everyone was taking advantage of the US. Negotiating with Putin would be easier than dealing with allies, he said. It was all transactional, about price tags and deals. Values found little airtime.
At almost every step, in tweet after tweet, he sneered at the liberal western order built from the ashes of World War II, underwritten through institutions like NATO and the UN and protected under the US nuclear umbrella, an order that has given much of the world unrivaled peace and prosperity.
