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WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump blasted Europe as "decaying" and "weak" on immigration and Ukraine in an interview published on Tuesday (Dec 9), deepening a rift between the United States and some of its oldest allies.

Speaking to Politico, Trump also called on war-battered Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to hold elections despite Russia's invasion and said that Moscow had the "upper hand".

Trump's comments doubled down on extraordinary criticism of top US partners in his administration's new national security strategy last week, which recycled far-right tropes about civilizational "erasure" in Europe.

"Most European nations, they're decaying," Trump told Politico in the interview, conducted on Monday.

The 79-year-old billionaire, whose political rise to power was built on inflammatory language about migrants, said that Europe's policies on migrants were a "disaster".

"They want to be politically correct, and it makes them weak. That's what makes them weak," Trump said, adding that there were "some real stupid ones" among Europe's leaders.

Trump also criticised European nations over Ukraine, amid growing differences over a US plan to end the war that many in Europe fear will force Kyiv to hand over territory to Russia, which launched a full-scale invasion of the country in 2022.

"NATO calls me daddy," Trump said, referring to comments by the military alliance's leader Mark Rutte at a summit in June when leaders backed Trump's call to raise defence spending.

But he added: "They talk but they don't produce. And the war just keeps going on and on".

European leaders have been trying to woo Trump since his return to office in January, especially on maintaining US support for Ukraine against Russia.

Trump's interview will intensify the alarm in European capitals sparked by the US security strategy last week, with its calls for "cultivating resistance" in Europe on migration and warnings of so-called "civilisational erasure."

Experts have said parts of it echo elements of the "great replacement theory" promoted by the far-right - and Trump's former ally Elon Musk - which alleges a conspiracy to replace white populations.

"NOT A DEMOCRACY ANYMORE"

In contrast to the savaging of close US allies, Russia and China got off relatively lightly in the US strategy. The Kremlin said the US document aligned with its own worldview.

A French minister, Alice Rufo, said Tuesday that the US security strategy was an "extremely brutal clarification of the ideological stance of the United States".

In his Politico interview, Trump said countries including Britain, France, Germany, Poland and Sweden were being "destroyed" by migration.

He also launched a new attack on "horrible, vicious, disgusting" Sadiq Khan, London's first Muslim mayor. Khan told Politico that Trump was "obsessed" with him and said US citizens were "flocking" to live in London.