Trump strains ties with Europe

While it gained a bumper economic harvest for the United States in the Middle East, the first overseas trip by Donald Trump as the US president seems to have widened an already-existing schism with his country's European allies.

Trump attended a series of political activities in Europe such as NATO and G7 summits, but he stoked discontent among European countries on almost every occasion.

Aside from fueling European countries' concerns about the reduced role of the US in their security affairs, Trump also rubbed salt in the wound by attacking Germany, saying when it comes to trade, Germans are "very bad", particularly when it comes to automobiles, and promising to somehow put an end to the problem.