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Mr Trump’s comments on Nato and Brexit have unsettled allies in the EU
The US Vice-President, Mike Pence, has said the US under President Trump remains committed to co-operation and partnership with the European Union.
Mr Pence, speaking in Brussels, sought to reassure European allies worried by some of Mr Trump’s statements.
Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, said the EU was counting on unequivocal US support for a united Europe.
Mr Trump’s comments on Brexit and the role of Nato have unsettled allies.
His vice-president, who said Mr Trump had asked him to travel to Brussels, is now holding talks with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker.
Mr Juncker said the US needed “a strong, united European Union”.
“This is not the moment for Europe to divide itself into former national, provincial categories,” he said.
Donald Trump has previously spoken out in favour of Brexit, telling the Times newspaper last month that he thought the UK was “so smart in getting out”.
For European leaders this was reassurance, of a sort.
When the US vice-president arrived in Europe at the weekend and didn’t mention US backing for the EU it was noted. Now Mr Pence has done so, importantly in the home of the EU’s institutions, standing side by side with Mr Tusk and Mr Juncker.
But the fact Europeans were waiting for a US leader to make such a statement is a sign these are uncertain times. And it leaves a nagging feeling among Europeans that they can’t be sure President Trump will stick to the same script or differ in his next tweet or unscripted remark.
So for many Europeans the Trump administration remains unpredictable, unclear in its thinking, even divided on key issues.
And Europeans may well wait, putting more store by what a transactional president does, than by what is said. Mr Tusk made a point of telling Vice-President Pence that “Americans and Europeans must… practise what they preach.”
Mr Tusk said the meeting with Mr Pence was “truly needed”, after what he described as “too many new and sometimes surprising opinions” that had been voiced in past months “for us to pretend that everything is as it used to be”.
The idea of Nato was not obsolete, Mr Tusk said, in his statement after meeting the vice-president – a reference to Mr Trump’s use of the word to describe the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation last month.
Mr Pence told leaders gathered at the Munich Security Conference at the weekend that the US would be “unwavering” in its support for Nato.
He also said the US would continue to hold Russia accountable over the Ukraine conflict, though he said that President Trump believed that new common ground can be found with Russia.
The president himself sought to clarify his remarks about a terrorist attack in Sweden which did not happen.
During a rally on Saturday, he listed parts of Europe that have been hit by terror attacks and said: “Look at what’s happening last night in Sweden,” baffling many Swedes.
On Sunday, he tweeted that he had been referring to a TV report.
BBC