Time to reevaluate our relationship with the EU in the face of Trump threat - Yorkshire Post Letters

When the Brexit vote took place a decade ago, the threat of a Trump presidency was there although we didn't know if it would actually happen and could not be certain what the implications might be.

Then presidential candidate Donald Trump encouraged Britain to leave the European Union. Within hours of the result, he was promising we would be at the front of the queue for a fabulous US trade deal – validating what the Leave campaigns had claimed about post-Brexit opportunities.

It didn't happen, of course, and now it will not happen. Talk now is just about tariffs and damage limitation against the backdrop of a US president who changes his mind like the weather.

Ten years on, it is a different world for Britain and the rest of Europe: There are new threats from the East (Russia) and West (MAGA America), plus further to the south the inexorable rise of China.

In this new Trumpian era (European countries condemn US tariffs, front page, January 19), we must re-evaluate our relationship with our allies in Europe. The economic case has always been there – Trump's tariffs only reinforce it.

But with a US President seemingly ready to weaken the Western world and its liberal democracies – pushing it from one unnecessary crisis to the next – strength, stability and protection can only seriously be found by working more closely with reliable friends and neighbours than we have been used to in recent years.

Obviously, members of the group I represent would like us to simply rejoin the EU. Some readers might not quite be ready to take that step but should at least agree there is a greater need and urgency in this changed world to work more closely with European and other Western allies. They are not the enemy.

In these circumstances, we must question any politician or media outlet still advocating greater isolationism.