White House strategist Steve Bannon described the European Union as a flawed institution to Germany's US envoy a week before Vice President Mike Pence reaffirmed the US commitment to the EU in Brussels, two diplomatic sources with knowledge of the conversation told CNN.
Diplomats said that Pence's message of reassurance fell flat on European officials who are concerned about contradictory messages from Washington regarding the future relationship between the US and the EU. And it adds to the list of subjects about which President Donald Trump and administration officials are confusing allies.
'Combative conversation'
Bannon told Peter Witting, the German ambassador to the US, that the Trump administration wants to strengthen bilateral ties with individual European countries rather than deal with the entire bloc, the sources said.
In what was described as a "combative" conversation, the sources said Bannon spelled out a nationalist world view and cited a wave of anti-EU populism as evidence of the bloc's flaws, a similar refrain to the one he had previously articulated as the chief of the right-wing website Breitbart News.
But days later Pence stressed America's ties to the EU.(Full article here)
