Donald Trump keeps saying the European Union was specifically created to bilk the United States, and a historian got fed up with his false claim.
The president issued a pair of Truth Social rants on Thursday morning attacking the EU and threatening staggering 200-percent tariffs on wine, champagne and other alcoholic beverages, which he justified by claiming the political and economic union was formed to harm the U.S., and Princeton University historian Kevin Kruse fact-checked him in a post on his Union Busting website.
"Leaving aside for the moment the fact that the president seems to be baffled by the basic use of quotation marks and capitalizations, we should note that this characterization is 100 percent backwards," Kruse wrote. "At every stage of its creation and evolution, the European Union was designed to facilitate American foreign policy goals and to protect American interests from the pressures of the Soviet Union. Its origins and evolution were, in fact, closely tied to the greatest foreign policy initiative of the post-World War II era – the Marshall Plan."
ALSO READ: 'Came as a surprise to me': Senators 'troubled' by one aspect of government funding bill
The postwar American foreign policy consensus encouraged Western Europe to work together along cultural, economic and political lines, and Harry Truman's secretary of state George Marshall argued that doing so would assist the U.S. in its goals.
"It is logical," he told Congress, "that the United States should do whatever it is able to do to assist in the return of ordinary economic health in the world, without which there can be no political stability and no assured peace."
The United States invested $13.3 billion, or $176 billion in today's money, in the European Recovery Program, commonly known as the Marshall Plan, to restore peace and prosperity to the war-torn continent, and Americans of that era openly and actively sought a unified Europe.
"Indeed, it was common to see in the late 1940s Americans promoting the end goal of a 'United States of Europe' that would prevent internal fighting on the continent and build up a bulwark against the expansionism of the Soviet Union," Kruse wrote.
That goal had broad bipartisan support through the end of the 20th century and well into this one, until Trump opened a trade war against the EU justified with a historical falsehood.
"At every step of the way, the European Union was understood – by Americans and by everyone else – as a measure that was promoted and perfected with the full support of the United States of America," Kruse wrote. "The idea that its purpose was to 'screw' America over instead of helping it out is so deeply stupid that, ofcourse, Donald Trump believes it."