Trump’s Shadow over Europe

Donald Trump won the Grand Slam tournament: he won not only the majority of electors, but also the popular vote (something neither he had in 2016 nor George W. Bush in 2000), as well as the Senate and House of Representatives. Adding the fact that he actually controls the Supreme Court, which acquitted him of judicial sleaze, he now has total power in the United States. Donald Trump is even more full of energy, and his mandate promises to be intense, to say the least.

So, the energized Trump returns to power, more confident than ever. During his first term, he was surrounded by administration or Republican apparatus figures more moderate than him, the famous “adults in the room.” Henceforth, they intend to appoint to important positions only those personalities who are personally attached to him and who will not contradict him.

The first term has seriously shaken Washington’s European allies. They can already buckle their seat belts. This risks intensifying even more during the second term, when Donald Trump no longer knows any limits.

The most optimistic will say that this is ultimately a salutary awakening for Europeans. The latter have begun to realize that they no longer need to rely on the protection of the United States under Donald Trump, who has called the European Union an enemy.

Even the most wait-and-see accepted the idea that they needed a “Plan B” in the face of an ally who was unreliable in the protection he gave them and cruel in the relationship he maintained with them. In reality, the notion of ally is irrelevant to Donald Trump. His obsession was the trade deficit that the United States is running following the EU countries, which in commodity terms reached $208 billion in 2023, or 1/5 of the total United States deficit in that year.

For him, it’s simple: the Europeans, protected by the United States, who don’t spend their true share of the burden on military expenses, are lining the pockets of Americans by coming to destroy their industries.

Even Merkel and von der Leyen realized the danger: the former called on Europeans to take charge of their own destiny, the latter confirmed that she would head a geopolitical commission. France is no longer the only one preaching Europe’s strategic autonomy in the wilderness.

Joe Biden’s rise to power reassured all Europeans: it was a return to the classic Atlanticism that suited them. They did not realize that despite his good-naturedness and smiles, despite his reminders of transatlantic solidarity, Joe Biden shares a common concept with Donald Trump: Europeans are economic rivals. The Inflation Reduction Act was a tremendous force in attracting European industrialists to the detriment of their European enterprises.

At the very least, the return of Donald Trump should prevent Europeans from being fooled. Unlike Joe Biden, Donald Trump does not proclaim that the Europeans are strategic allies, but, like him, will behave like an economic rival, but in a more transparent, more overt, and more brutal way.

The problem is that in the meantime the war in Ukraine has started, which has greatly increased the fear among Europeans of their military weakness. Another problem is that during Donald Trump’s first term, two important nations were led by two strong leaders, namely Angela Merkel in Germany and Emmanuel Macron in France. Henceforth, for reasons of domestic politics, the German Chancellor and the French President are weakened, and the heads of state themselves are economically weakened.

There are really two scenarios: either we are witnessing a collective implosion of Europeans, and recent statements by Donald Tusk, the prime minister of Poland, one of the most deeply Atlanticist countries, offer hope, as he said even before Donald Trump was elected: “It’s time for Europe to finally grow up and believe in its own strength. Whatever the outcome, the era of geopolitical outsourcing is over”; or Europeans in a weak situation will be divided and afraid to assert their position in isolation in Washington or at Mar-a-Lago.

Regarding the war in Ukraine, we see the general outlines of Donald Trump’s plan. The message that has been sent to Ukrainians is that we have to stop there, there are military realities, and it is illusory to think that Crimea or even the territories lost since 2022 could be reclaimed. But a warning was also sent to Vladimir Putin not to go too far. The problem is that Ukraine remains sovereign, that it continues to have access to the Black Sea, even though 20% of its territory has been amputated.

The Europeans will be destabilized because they have always said they would support Ukraine to the end, that Vladimir Zelensky’s military objectives were theirs, and that their strategic credibility was at stake. Therefore, it will be accomplished. They should have noticed it a long time ago. Facts are stubborn. There are five times more Russians than Ukrainians, and no one is going to send Western soldiers to make up for this demographic inferiority, as it might just mean the start of World War III. Russia may have a low GDP. But if it’s a paper tiger from an economic standpoint, it has nuclear teeth. Throughout the Cold War, we carefully avoided direct confrontation between Western and Soviet soldiers precisely to avoid escalation to extremes. The mistake of the Europeans is that they largely helped Ukraine without even wanting to truly influence the goals of the war and ended up falling behind Moscow, Kiev, and Washington. The Europeans have never put forward their interests in this matter, in the name of their proclaimed values. So, they made themselves prisoners.

Ukraine’s task now is to develop its economy and no longer live in illusions of reclaiming lost territories at the cost of ever-increasing deaths and general weakening. Vladimir Putin will never give these territories back. It’s questionable whether his successors will be able to handle it. Thus, relations between Western Europe, which will not be able to recognize these illegal annexations, and Russia are permanently interrupted.

The remaining question is the relationship with China. There will be trade tensions caused by China’s even greater need to export to Europe if the US market becomes more closed to it. Donald Trump, unlike Joe Biden, will not push for a grand coalition of democracies against an axis of authoritarian countries. But he will certainly seek to ensure that Europeans follow his China policy. The Europeans will have to fight back, especially that for many of them the Chinese market is as important as the US market.