Vice President Mike Pence will bear the responsibility of assuring Europe this weekend that the U.S. is a reliable ally despite the Trump administration’s "America First" strategy of a hard line on NATO contributions and trade relations.
His challenges in making the case at meetings of leaders in Munich and Brussels have been compounded by the tumultuous opening of Donald Trump’s presidency: a ban on travel to the U.S. from seven predominantly Muslim countries that riled much of the European public, and the resignation of Trump’s national security adviser over contacts with officials of a Russian regime many of them consider a rising threat.
