Story highlights President Barack Obama left behind little assurance Europe's fears of Trump aren't well-founded

He met with western allies and found counterparts in varying stages of political strife

Berlin (CNN) When Barack Obama introduced himself to the world in 2008, he stood in the sprawling Tiergarten here, packed with Berliners waving American flags, and declared that walls — metaphoric divides of ethnicity, gender, religion, and race — were crumbling.

Thursday, as he stood on the opposite end of the park inside the German chancellery, the mood was darker. The man replacing him is readying plans to build a physical wall on the US border. A wash of populist nationalism has dampened prospects of steady cooperation.

Bidding farewell in the same city he proclaimed his "hope and change" vision loudest, Obama instead warned of a dimmer change encroaching.

"There are going to be forces that argue for cynicism, for looking the other way with somebody else's problems, that are not going to champion people who are vulnerable because sometimes that's politically convenient," he said. "If we don't have a strong transatlantic alliance that's standing up for those things, we will be giving to our children a worse world. We will go backwards instead of forwards."

The forces he described spreading across nations — cynical, uncaring, politically craven shadows — mirror almost exactly his pre-election descriptions of Donald Trump, views he says haven't changed in the days since he met with the President-elect in the Oval Office.

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