While President Trump is busy with protecting America from the coronavirus outbreak, the European Union apparently has a different vision for how things should go.
Early this week, Trump put in place travel restrictions for EU citizens. The response from the EU, as expected, was one of condemnation.
President Trump, however, had his own words to say in response to the EU’s negative words.
Check out the latest:
Fox News reports:
President Trump on Thursday shrugged off complaints by European Union leaders that they were not consulted before he announced travel restrictions from Europe due to coronavirus -- arguing that the E.U. doesn’t alert the U.S. when it raises tariffs.
“We get along well with the European leaders, but we had to make a decision and I didn’t want to take time, and it takes a long time to make the individual calls,” he said in the Oval Office, alongside Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar, before adding that he had spoken to some EU leaders before the announcement.
“But we had to move quickly, I mean when they raise taxes on us, they don’t consult us and I think that’s probably one and the same,” he added.
Trump announced late Wednesday that travel from Europe would be restricted for 30 days -- although the U.K. and Ireland are not included. The Department of Homeland Security went on to clarify that it affects most foreign nationals who were in Europe’s passport-free “Schengen Area” within 14 days prior to traveling to the U.S.
The area in question consists of 26 countries, including France, Italy, German, Greece, Austria, Belgium, Switzerland, Norway, and Sweden. The Trump administration had slapped a travel ban on foreign nationals who had visited China and Iran last month.
But EU leaders were furious, saying that the global pandemic requires “cooperation rather than unilateral action.”
“The European Union disapproves of the fact that the U.S. decision to impose a travel ban was taken unilaterally and without consultation,” EU Council President Charles Michel and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in a statement. “The European Union is taking strong action to limit the spread of the virus.”
The Western Journal added:
Travelers from Ireland and the United Kingdom are not affected by the ban, according to Fox. It takes effect at midnight Friday (Eastern Daylight Time) and is set to last for 30 days.
In a statement criticizing Trump’s action, European Union Council President Charles Michel and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said more “consultation” should have taken place.
“The European Union disapproves of the fact that the U.S. decision to impose a travel ban was taken unilaterally and without consultation,” they said in the statement, according to Fox. “The European Union is taking strong action to limit the spread of the virus.”
Maybe not strong enough.
According to the Centers for Disease Control, as of Thursday, the United States had 1,215 reported cases of coronavirus infections, with 36 deaths so far.
By dismaying contrast, the European Union, according to Fox, has had 17,000 cases of coronavirus infections. According to the German data compilation company Statista, the EU has recorded 951 coronavirus deaths, with 827 of them in Italy alone.
For the European Union and its “Schengen Area,” where passports are not needed in an essentially border-free zone, the idea of banning travelers from abroad might seem foreign.
But for the United States, where the issue of border control was key to Trump’s election in 2016 – and has been a point of conflict with radical Democrats who want to open the country’s borders to anyone who wants to come in – it’s a different matter.
Take a look at the video of the EU's response to the President's travel ban:
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