Calls the European Union a "foe" of the United States days before Putin summit

In a CBS News interview conducted July 14, 2018 in Turnberry, Scotland and broadcast July 15 on Face the Nation, Trump was asked to name the biggest "foe" the United States faces globally. He answered, "I think the European Union is a foe, what they do to us in trade," grouping the bloc with Russia and China among the adversaries he named, and cited German defense spending and a Russia-Germany pipeline deal as evidence of a compromised alliance. The interview aired two days before Trump's Helsinki summit with Vladimir Putin, where he sided with Putin's denials over U.S. intelligence findings on Russian election interference. Commentators and European officials noted the contrast between Trump's adversarial framing of a longstanding democratic ally and his conciliatory posture toward Russia in the same stretch of days.

“I think the European Union is a foe, what they do to us in trade.” Quote verified against source