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While listening to President Trump announce the European travel ban in his Oval Office address, my mind wandered back in time to the early G20 meetings of finance ministers and heads of government in 2009 when the United States and its European partners worked together to head off a global financial meltdown.

I then traveled back a little further in time to the terrorist attacks of 9/11, a day on which I found myself traveling on the Eurostar between London and Brussels, my two homes at the time. For the first time in NATO's history, our European and Canadian allies triggered the alliance's Article 5 commitment to common defense.

Going back to read the language of this provision, written in 1949 to deter Soviet aggression, it struck me that Trump could have produced a far more presidential moment this week if he had done what the Europeans did for the United States back then. He should offer the transatlantic community an Article 5 declaration of war against this deadly pathogen.

If NATO could bend Article 5 to combat a non-state terrorist actor striking the United States, why not also to combat the Chinese-originated COVID-19, which by Friday had infected more than 28,000 individuals and killed more than 1,200 among NATO allies. Given current transatlantic divisions, there is far greater need now than after 9/11 for a symbolic gesture of unity.

President Trump could have confounded his critics, calmed markets and perhaps even outlined common cause efforts including travel limitations that he and his administration had agreed to during consultations with our NATO partners and the European Union. "Article 5 provides that an attack on one of us is an attack on all," he could have said, Three Muskateer-like. "It's all for one, and one for all!"

There's also a strong America First reason why President Trump should have leaned more in that direction. He's going to need Europe, just as the United States did in 2009, as this health crisis is quickly becoming a markets and financial crisis that could be addressed far more effectively through coordinated public health and fiscal stimulus measures.

Though no one wishes the world a financial crisis of the 2008 and 2009 dimensions, it would be irresponsible not to begin talks among the world's major economies and democracies about what strains they see in the system and what contingency planning they should be undertaking should the coronavirus economic slowdown continue. Compared to 2009, the world's record debt levels and its low to negative interest rates provide far less capability and then demand even more common cause.

Instead, what unfolded on 3/11/2020 in Europe and the United States were events that further underscored how divided the United States and its European partners are when they should be most united. Without consulting our allies at all, he implemented the ban which took effect at midnight Friday in an Oval Office address on all American television networks that left his own national security team scratching their heads, correcting mistakes (cargo wouldn't be banned, as the President initially said), and filling in critical omissions (Americans could still travel home from Europe).

The result was one of the harshest responses ever recorded from EU leaders to an American President. A joint statement by President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and President of the European Council, Charles Michel, read: "The Coronavirus is a global crisis, not limited to any continent and it requires cooperation rather than unilateral action. The European Union disapproves of the fact that the U.S. decision to impose a travel ban was taken unilaterally and without consultation. The European Union is taking strong action to limit the spread of the virus."

"When it comes to solidarity and unity, the United States is failing the coronavirus test," Benjamin Haddad, the director of the Atlantic Council's Future Europe Initiative, wrote in the Washington Post. "President Trump's speech Wednesday on the response to COVID-19 marked one of the most consequential foreign policy turning points of his presidency. This moment represents the lowest point in transatlantic relations in recent memory."

Sadly, the recent days have also shown how divided Europeans are among themselves, with Italians that there call for help has brought insufficient assistance to the country so far hardest hit in Europe by the virus. At previous such times of European uncertainty, the United States could provide necessary glue to keep everyone together.

".it's time now for the EU to go beyond engagement and consultations," Maurizio Massari, the Italian permanent representative to the European Union, wrote in Politico, "with emergency actions that are quick, concrete and effective."

He complained that "not a single EU country" had responded to Italy's call to active the European Union Mechanism of Civil Protection for the supply of medical equipment for individual protection. "Only China responded bilaterally. Certainly, this is not a good sign of European solidarity."

Unimaginably, Italian newspapers were full of Beijing's outreach to help on the very same day that President Trump declared his European travel ban.

A plane carrying a team of specialist doctors with battleground experience fighting the virus left China on Wednesday for Italy, the European epicenter of the pandemic, with urgently needed medical equipment. That includes 2 million facemasks, 20,0000 protective suits and 10,000 ventilators.

The gesture was widely publicized in China and Italy. A report in China Daily said that thanks to donations from people living in the East China Zhejian province, some 4,556 boxes of disaster-relief materials were on their way to Italy. More than 300,000 people from the province live and work in Italy.

Crises either make institutions and relationships stronger or weaker, but they don't leave them unchanged. A pandemic's political danger is that countries just like some individuals feel that it's everyone for themselves.

Yet after an unforgivable initial delay, Europeans are beginning to show more solidarity among themselves. EU leaders have committed 25 billion euros to respond to the economic fallout, of which $7.5 billion euros should be available quickly to provide emergency necessities.

Now it's the United States' turn to mend the message of this week. As fanciful as this idea might sound, it's time to invoke NATO's Article 5 to tackle the virus. It may take that dramatic of a symbolic action to repair the transatlantic damage that has been done.

Frederick Kempe is a best-selling author, prize-winning journalist and president & CEO of the Atlantic Council, one of the United States' most influential think tanks on global affairs. He worked at The Wall Street Journal for more than 25 years as a foreign correspondent, assistant managing editor and as the longest-serving editor of the paper's European edition. His latest book "Berlin 1961: Kennedy, Khrushchev, and the Most Dangerous Place on Earth" was a New York Times best-seller and has been published in more than a dozen languages. Follow him on Twitter@FredKempeand subscribe hereto Inflection Points, his look each Saturday at the past week's top stories and trends.

For more insight from CNBC contributors, follow @CNBCopinion on Twitter.

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Op-Ed: The US should call NATO to action and defend Europe against coronavirus - CNBC

BRIXHAM, England In the pitch black of early morning, huge waves hurled the 30-ton vessel from side to side, drenching crewmen who struggled to keep their footing as they cast the trawlers nets into the swirling seas.

But, once back on the bridge, the skipper, Dave Driver was oblivious to the stomach-churning motion of the boat, and dismissive of the perils of his work even as he recalled once falling overboard and, on another occasion, rescuing two fishermen from drowning.

Im my own boss, I do what I want, I think its the best job in the world, said Mr. Driver, who left school at age 15, but now owns the 1.2 million pound trawler Girl Debra, named after his wife.

He has only one major gripe in life: the French.

Mr. Driver thinks French boats are allowed to take too many fish too close to the British coast touching on a deeply emotional issue on both sides of the channel that could dash hopes of a post-Brexit trade deal between Britain and the European Union.

Without the obligations of membership in the bloc, Britain wants to curb the number of continental trawlers in its waters. It is even scaling up its naval protection fleet in preparation for possible confrontations on the high seas.

Yet its fishermen rely on European markets where new trade barriers look certain. And if talks collapse many fear that Frances famously truculent fishermen could blockade ports to stop movements of British fish.

That matters in places like Brixham, in the southwest of England, because the British export most of the fish they catch and import the majority of what they eat.

About one third of the catch landed in Britains ports is mackerel, a species few Britons will touch. Overall, around four-fifths of the fish caught by British vessels goes abroad, mainly to other European countries.

Most of it is mackerel, herring and shellfish that fetch better prices abroad.

For decades this has been managed through a combination of free trade within the European Union and carefully drawn fishing rights based on historic fishing patterns. French and Dutch fishermen say they are hardly interlopers in Britains waters, as their ancestors worked there for centuries.

But Brexit has blown that system apart, and long-held resentments are coming to the surface.

The looming clash is in many ways extraordinary, considering how minute the fishing industry is in the greater scheme of things.

There are just 12,000 British fishermen operating 6,000 vessels and contributing less than one half of one percent of gross domestic product less, according to one analysis, than Harrods, the upscale London department store.

I can see a ridiculous amount of political emotion being spent on something that is not economically that important, said Chris Davies, a former chairman of the European Parliaments Fisheries Committee.

Yet a sense of injustice has festered for years in British coastal communities, many of which have little else going for them apart from fish.

The British governments once seemed happy enough to trade fishing for other concessions, downsizing the national fleet, said Mr. Davies, who added that many British fishermen sold their boats and fishing rights to continental competitors.

There is a huge myth that some have created that they were robbed and its just not true, Mr. Davies added, noting that much British fish is extracted by wealthy corporations rather than independent fishermen like Mr. Driver. Just 13 companies hold 60 percent of British fishing rights.

But gazing back at the English coastline from a few miles out at sea, things look different. If Mr. Driver had his way, foreign vessels would be barred from the first 12 miles of British waters, while British quotas would be expanded.

The French have the majority of the fish, we just havent got enough quota, said Mr. Driver, reading from a sheet of paper with his monthly cod entitlement.

Thirty kilos that isnt even a box thats all Im allowed, the French they fill up and, with all due respect, asked Mr. Driver, pointing to the ocean, his voice rising a little, whats this piece of water called between England and France? Its called the English Channel, not the French Channel.

Around Britains coast, about 60 percent of the fish are caught by foreign boats, and one former British minister, Michael Forsyth, recently compared the situation to the British demanding two-thirds of Frances grape harvest.

In the English Channel zone where Mr. Driver goes to sea 84 percent of the cod is allocated to France and just 9 percent to the British, according to Barrie Deas, chief executive of the National Federation of Fishermens Organizations.

Yet, livelihoods are at stake on the other side of the Channel, too. Standing on the bridge of the Prins Bernhard, preparing to leave the Dutch port of Scheveningen on a 15-day voyage to Irelands west coast, Christophe Pauliac described being a captain not as a job, but a passion.

Mr. Pauliacs father, grandfather and uncle were fishermen, and he is in charge of 30 French crew members on this floating fish factory, a large and sophisticated trawler that nets, then pumps up tons of mackerel and herring from the sea.

The fish are sorted and stored in a giant freezer that can accommodate more than 65,000 blocks of fish, each weighing more than 20 kilos, or about 45 pounds.

Excluding the Prins Bernhard from British waters particularly those off the Scottish coast would be a catastrophe, said Mr. Pauliac, who added that he competes not with smaller trawlers but with Scotlands fleet of big, efficient, vessels. His boat spends perhaps 70 percent of its time in British territorial waters.

There is room for everyone, said Mr. Pauliac calm, polite and mild-mannered adding that he hopes for an agreement.

Without a deal, there could be bankruptcies in France. Even crews that spend just 30 percent of their time in British waters would struggle, said Antoine Dhellemmes, director general of France Pelagique, the company that operates the Prins Bernhard.

The European Union wants to base new fishing quotas around Britain on existing ones, and make them of long duration, rather than haggling annually as the European Union does with Norway over fishing rights.

The British want the opposite. But one question is whether the British fishing industry will get the better deal it demands or whether history will repeat itself with London trading fish for finance or another sector in a broader trade deal.

There is danger for Britains fishing industry if the European Union imposes tariffs on imports. Even without such restrictions, British fish will need new food safety certification before export, and time-consuming checks are likely at continental ports.

Extra costs and delays could drive some merchants, processors and fishermen out of business.

Perhaps the best hope that a deal can be struck is the fact that British fishermen seem to be demanding less than some expected.

In the Cornish port of Newlyn, Andrew Pascoe, talking on the quay side next to his vessel, the Ajax, called for only modest increases in fish quotas and the exclusion of foreign vessels from a zone 12 miles off the British coast. In many areas there is now a six-mile limit for French boats.

Some fishermen would say ban all foreign trawlers but we couldnt claim everything back and catch all that fish, said Mr. Pascoe, who is also chairman of the National Federation of Fishermens Organizations.

A truck from Portugal routinely meets one of Mr. Pascoes boats so that its haul of shellfish can be driven straight to the continent, illustrating the importance of European markets to him. His Portuguese customer has promised to keep the arrangement after Brexit, whatever the extra costs, he said.

But many are unsure that things will go so smoothly.

We hold the access card and the Europeans hold the market card, said Sam Lambourn, as he tinkered with the Lyonesse, a catamaran used for sardine fishing in the same port.

The markets are interrelated and nobody is isolated, he said, and anyone who thinks they are not going to be affected is in for a surprise.

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Fishing Presents a Vexing Snag in Brexit Talks - The New York Times

In the coming decades, sub-Saharan Africa will grow increasingly important to both the U.S. and Europe. Its growing population and proximity to Europe make that fact undeniable. Chinese political and economic inroads may be irreversible. Yet, by working together, the U.S. and Europe do have the ability to create the space for African governments and their people to have a viable alternative strategic direction. Such an undertaking not only would benefit Africa, but would put a much-needed item of converging interest on the transatlantic agenda.

The transatlantic relationship between the United States, the European Union (EU) and major European capitals is rife with a growing sense of pessimism that the two sides of the Atlantic have set themselves on independent courses. American and European leaders have parted ways on the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action to contain Irans nuclear ambitions and the Paris Agreement to fight climate change. Beyond that, the two sides continue to have running disagreements on trade, defense spending and how to tax and regulate digital services. The U.S. and Europe also broadly continue to fail to find a coordinated approach to Chinas aggressive and mercantilist economic stance.

These substantial policy disagreements are compounded by political statements that have diminished mutual trust and goodwill. President TrumpDonald John TrumpFormer Pennsylvania governor: Biden nomination will be 'virtually clinched' after next Tuesday How coronavirus is changing Sunday's debate The Memo: Coronavirus scrambles the art of campaigning MORE has called the EU a foe that treats the U.S. worse than China. Donald Tusk, then the president of the European Council, said last year that Trump is perhaps the most difficult challenge facing the European Union. While the history of the transatlantic relationship has no shortage of contentious disputes, both America and Europe remained committed to one another in a mutually beneficial strategic alignment. Yet, confronted with numerous disagreements over fundamental issues, todays European leaders have taken to discussing strategic sovereignty for Europe with renewed urgency.

The U.S. and Europe undoubtedly will remain close economic partners for the foreseeable future, but the strategic alignment between the two continents is at risk of losing cohesion. And once abandoned, it will not be easily or quickly restored.

To avoid such a result, what is needed is a strategic project where the skill sets and political interests of both the U.S. and Europe can complement one another to achieve a mutual interest. That could be achieved by cooperating in sub-Saharan Africa to expand market-oriented economies and democratic governance. That would help African countries to better navigate the threats from violent extremist groups, the rigors of environmental changes, and the siren call of the Chinese economic model.

While often left out of transatlantic conversations, the future of sub-Saharan Africa holds potentially enormous implications for both the United States and Europe. Over the next 30 years, the population of sub-Saharan Africa is slated to grow to over2.2 billion people, or nearly a quarter of the worlds total population. The U.S. and Europe share a common interest to see this region develop into a zone of stability and not a source of mass irregular migration of the type that has proven so politically destabilizing to Europe in recent years.

Between 2000 and 2017, nearly 1 million sub-Saharan migrants sought asylum in Europe. As Africas population grows, the potential for future mass flows of people north because of climate change or conflict could be overwhelming.

By working together, the U.S. and Europe could align their approaches to sub-Saharan Africa in a way that provides Africans a meaningful alternative to Chinas coercive debt-diplomacy while also allowing for a positive project that restores confidence in transatlantic cooperation. Such a strategic arrangement could work because the United States and Europe could each focus on different, but complementary actions.

The EU could emphasize the types of programs for which it has shown an affinity, including in the development, health and environmental sectors. The U.S., along with select allies, could use its military might and superior intelligence collection abilities to defeat terrorist groups and work to mature the newly established U.S. International Development Finance Corporation into a mechanism to provide a viable, sustainable and transparent financing options to balance the influence of China. That would cater to the political preferences of the Trump administration.

Both Washington and European capitals should understand that sub-Saharan Africa increasingly will be a valuable export market and economic partner. While only about 1 percent of current U.S. trade takes place with sub-Saharan Africa, the opportunities in coming decades as extreme poverty recedes and urbanization grows are exponential. It is only prudent to take steps now to ensure African countries remain open to Western business and embrace rule of law and market capitalism. If not, American and European companies could well be crowded out by state-supported Chinese rivals and the non-market economic conditions they bring.

In just the past several weeks, Washington and Brussels have turned their attention to Africa. Secretary of State Mike PompeoMichael (Mike) Richard PompeoTrump's national security adviser says China 'covered up' coronavirus The Hill's Morning Report - Biden delivers another devastating blow to Sanders CDC chief says it's wrong to call COVID-19 a 'Chinese virus' MORE and his EU equivalent, Josep Borrell, each made separate visits to the continent. Additionally, Ursula von der Leyen made her inaugural visit as EU Commission president in February, leading an unprecedentedly large delegation of 20 EU commissioners.

This attention is surely welcome, but the West is lagging behind China. According to the American Enterprise Institutes Global Investment Tracker, China has invested some $300 billion in sub-Saharan Africa since 2005. China has opened dozens of Confucius Institutes, mostly within African colleges and universities to propagate its soft power, invested in media organizations to deliver Beijings interpretation of the news, and even built the underlying information technology infrastructure in many cases.

The U.S. and Europe find themselves at numerous political and policy impasses, and the time is right to expand the scope of what is possible. U.S. and European leaders should reframe sub-Saharan Africa as a transatlantic issue. Sub-Saharan Africa is where the American interest in competing with China meets sound economic and governance goals shared by Europe and Africans themselves.

Scott Cullinane is the executive director of U.S.-Europe Alliance. From 2011-2018, he served in various positions with the U.S. Congress, including as the professional staff member for the House Foreign Affairs Europe Subcommittee where he covered a broad jurisdiction, including the European Union, Russia, Ukraine, Turkey and Central Asia. Follow him on Twitter @ScottPCullinane.

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Could sub-Saharan Africa be what unites the US and Europe? | TheHill - The Hill

Like many jurisdictions around the world, the European Union has announced extraordinary measures to combat the Coronavirus, or COVID-19, including measures to mitigate the impact the illness will have on SMEs.

In a statement yesterday,the Commission said it considers the COVID-19 pandemic as qualifying as an unusual event outside the control of government. The Commission will recommend adjusting the fiscal efforts required from Member States in case of negative growth or large drops in [economic] activity.

More policy action may be in the queue, including general fiscal policy support and suspending the fiscal adjustment recommended by the Council in case of a severe economic downturn in the Euro area or the EU as a whole.

Regarding the impact to European SMEs, the EU had this to say:

To bring immediate relief to hard-hit SMEs, the EU budget will deploy its existing instruments to support these companies with liquidity, complementing measures taken at national level. In the coming weeks, 1 billion will be redirected from the EU budget as a guarantee to the European Investment Fund to incentivise banks to provide liquidity to SMEs and midcaps. This will help at least 100,000 European SMEs and small mid-caps with about 8 billion of financing. We will also provide credit holidays to the existing debtors that are negatively affected.

The complete statement on the Coronavirus is available here.

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Coronavirus: European Union to Aid SMEs with 8 Billion of Financing - Crowdfund Insider

The Bavarian Minister for the Interior, Joachim Herrmann, greets the first US soldiers to arrive in Europe (Nuremberg, 3 March 2020)

The Ministers for Defence of the 27 countries of the EU, 22 of which are also members of NATO, met on 4 and 5 March in Zagreb, Croatia. The central theme of the meeting (in which Lorenzo Guerini of the Democratic Party represented Italy) was not to seek a response to the Coronavirus crisis which is jamming up civil mobility, but how best to develop military mobility . The decisive test is the Defender Europe 20 exercise, scheduled for April and May. The General Secretary of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg, who took part in the EU meeting, dfines it as the largest deployment of US forces in Europe since the end of the Cold War .

The 20,000 soldiers who, with 10,000 others already on site, and 7,000 NATO allies, are presently arriving in Europe from the USA, informs the US Army Europe. They are to deploy throughout the European region . The US forces are bringing with them 33,000 pieces of military equipment, from personal weapons to Abrams assault tanks. It is obvious that they will therefore need adequate infrastructures for their transport. But there is a problem, as revealed by a report by the European Parliament (February 2020): Since the 1990s, European infrastructures have been developed only for civil usage. However, military mobility has become a key question for NATO. As the Alliance lacks the tools to improve military mobility in Europe, the European Union, which does possess the legislative and financial tools to do so, plays an indispensable role .

The Action Plan on Military Mobility, presented by the European Commission in 2018, plans to modify those infrastructures which are not adapted to the weight and dimensions of military vehicles . For example, if a bridge is unable to support the weight of a column of tanks, it must be reinforced or rebuilt. On the basis of this criterion, the test for the strength of the new bridge, which in Gnes will replace the collapsed Morandi bridge, will have to be carried out with Abrams tanks weighing 70 tonnes each. These modifications, which are useless for civil purposes, will require massive expenditure to be assumed by the member countries, with a possible financial contribution by the EU .

The European Commission has provided for a primary allocation of 30 billion Euros this is public money taken from our pockets. The Plan also intends to simplify the Customs formalities for military operations and for the transport of dangerous military-style merchandise .

The US Army Europe has demanded the institution of a Military Schengen Zone , with the difference that it will not be people who will be allowed to travel unhindered, but tanks.

The Defender Europe 20 exercise - as was explained during the meeting in Zagreb will enable the identification of all obstacles to military mobility, which the EU will have to remove .

The transport network of the EU will therefore be tested by 30,000 US soldiers, who will deploy throughout the European region , exempted of the Coronavirus standards. This is confirmed by a video showing the first 200 soldiers of the US Army Europe arriving in Bavaria on 6 March. While in Lombardy, only a few hundred kilometres away, more severe standards are in place, in Bavaria, where the first European outbreak of Coronavirus was noted, US soldiers just off the plane shook hands with German authorities and kissed the comrades without any masks. Spontaneous question could they already be vaccinated against the Coronavirus?

Besides, we might ask ourselves what could be the purpose of the largest deployment of US forces in Europe since the end of the Cold War , officially to protect Europe from any potential threats (with a clear reference to the Russian menace ), at the moment when Europe is in crisis because of the threat of the Coronavirus (there is even one case at NATO headquarters in Brussels). And since the US Army Europe informs us that movements of troops and equipement in Europe will last until July , we can only wonder if all of the 20,000 US soldiers will go back to their Homeland, or will some of them stay behind with their weapons. Could the Defender become the Invader of Europe?

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In a Europe closed down by the Coronavirus, the EU opens its doors to the US army, by Manlio Dinucci - Rseau Voltaire