Prague/Seoul, Nov 9 (CTK) – Czech Foreign Minister Lubomir Zaoralek (Social Democrats, CSSD) congratulated Donald Trump on his victory in the U.S. presidential election and said he would bring new views into politics and a new phase of Czech-U.S. relations started with him, he wrote to CTK yesterday.
“He (Trump) brings new views and a new phase of our relation has started. I believe our partnership and alliance will continue,” Zaoralek wrote from Seoul where he is on a visit.
When it comes to relations between the United States and NATO, Zaoralek said in public Czech TV that he thought the post-election reality would differ from Trump’s pre-election statements.
During his election campaign, Trump said NATO, which had been established to counterbalance the Soviet power, was obsolete.
He also indicated that the United States might not hurry to help the NATO member states that did not give enough money to the military if they faced an attack.
The Czech Foreign Ministry said in a press release that it is ready to continue tightly cooperating with the new U.S. administration.
It wrote that in the spirit of strategic partnership, it believes that both countries will continue in the dialogue about the Czech contribution to the struggle against international terrorism and that the Czech embassy in Syria will continue representing the United States.
The ministry wrote that the strongest Czech community abroad lives in the United States and that the United States is the largest market for Czech exporters outside the European Union.
The Chamber of Deputies and Senate chairmen, Jan Hamacek and Milan Stech (both CSSD), respectively, agreed that U.S. voters had apparently wished a change if they preferred Trump in the presidential duel.
However, Stech admitted that the election result had surprised him.
“I believe that the new administration will keep striving for a strong Transatlantic bond,” Hamacek wrote to CTK.
The Americans simply wanted a change after eight years of the Democrats’ governance, Stech said.
“I would say that the election result reflects the Americans’ interest in an untraditional approach that Donald Trump presented in his campaign. He made it clear that he would like to prevent immigrants from entering the United States, which probably appealed to voters more strongly than expected,” Stech told CTK.
However, only Trump’s everyday policy will show where he will be leading his country, he added.
