Trump’s Anarchic European Agenda
His choice of partners is deeply concerning.
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There is a blatant incoherence at the heart of Donald Trump’s European agenda. On the one hand, the president is visibly exasperated with America’s European allies, in particular with their low defense spending and trade surpluses. On the other hand, in his forays into European politics, he tends to lend support to some of the least constructive political actors on the continent, who are oftentimes aligned with our adversaries.
First and foremost, consider the “fantastic” Viktor Orbán, a perennial favorite of the president and a frequent guest to Mar-a-Lago. Thanks to the purchasing of some big-ticket items, including tanks, helicopters, and air defense systems, Hungary’s defense spending is expected to be 2.11% of GDP this year, after decades of underinvestment – a far cry from Polish or Baltic levels. But even this modest increase is not taking place without considerable grumbling. “If the 2% has to be increased,” Orbán said late last year, “that would shoot the Hungarian economy in the lungs.”
Of course, Orbán has also turned his country into a “pillar” of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). He prevented the extradition of Russian criminals, the Lyubishins, wanted by U.S. authorities during the first Trump administration. And his government has made no apology for its outreach to the mullahs of Tehran, seeking to deepen trade and investment links with the regime, and hosting a 2000-strong student population from Iran.
The president’s confidant, Elon Musk, meanwhile spoke at the election campaign launch of the Alternative for Germany (AfD). The party, with its long track record of pro-Russian rhetoric, may not oppose increasing defense spending to strengthen Germany’s defenses. AfD’s manifesto, however, dryly notes that “the interests of the USA diverge increasingly from those of Germany.”
In her effort at broadening her party’s appeal, the AfD’s leader, Alice Weidel, may have tried to deemphasize the party’s most toxic elements—but those are not non-existent. Maximilian Krah, an AfD Member of the European Parliament, gained notoriety for stating he would “never say that anyone who wore an SS uniform was automatically a criminal.” He also believes “the anti-China forces in Germany do not represent the interests of Germany,” and that decoupling from China would serve “the interests of America.”
By contrast, Italy’s prime minister Giorgia Meloni—“a fantastic woman,” who attended President Trump’s inauguration—deserves credit for her clear pro-Ukrainian views, as well as for withdrawing Italy from BRI. However, she is not spending massive amounts of political capital to increase Italy’s defense spending, currently at 1.49%, nor does she have much fiscal space to do so against the background of a heavily indebted, sluggish economy. Meloni’s turn away from China leaves a lot to be desired, too, as illustrated by her trip to Beijing last year, followed by one by Italy’s president Sergio Mattarella, who called for more Chinese investment in Italy.
Trump is also vexed by the EU’s chronic and growing surplus in its trade relations with the United States. Besides tariffs on European imports to America, the administration seems keen on large-scale liquefied natural gas (LNG) sales to Europe. Again, Trump’s European acolytes see things differently: the AfD is keen to lift energy sanctions on Russia and restart the Nord Stream pipeline. Since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion, Orbán’s government has made no effort to diversify Hungarian energy sources from Russia. Even Italy’s energy minister does not rule out restoring gas imports from Russia when the war ends.
The flipside of America’s trade deficit with the EU, of course, is the trillions of dollars’ worth of European investment in the U.S. economy, possibly accounting for as many as 3.5 million jobs in the United States. One way of thinking about reducing the deficit is to urge Europeans to invest more in Europe, as opposed to the United States. Incidentally, more investment, completing the EU’s capital market union, and using the EU’s borrowing powers instead of the cash-strapped national budgets, is what European technocrats such as Mario Draghi recommend.
Yet, the latter idea is anathema to Trump’s preferred political actors, who are allergic to any suggestion of the EU’s doing more. The AfD, after all, was founded with the explicit purpose to stop joint European borrowing—and spending—from ever taking place. (True, Europe’s nationalist parties do not all think alike. The Polish and Nordic populists, for example, tend to be distinctly Atlanticist. But it is undeniable that for many European nationalists gravitating to Trump, tacit or explicit anti-Americanism is a recurrent theme.)
Maybe President Trump has been unlucky and exposed to a lot of bad advice from his family members, friends, and figures operating in MAGA circles. Under normal circumstances, one would not choose to consult Donald Trump Jr. or Tucker Carlson on America’s policy toward Europe. Richard Grenell, the president’s envoy for “special missions,” already sided with the Russia- and China-friendly regime in Serbia against student protesters whom he accused, without a shred of evidence, of trying to “undermine the rule of law or who forcefully take over government buildings.” Meanwhile, Darren Beattie, a notorious alt-right figure who expressed support for China’s bid to take over Taiwan and called Ukrainians “neo-Nazis,” has just become the acting Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs. Peter Thiel has also been making rounds in Eastern Europe lately, connecting with figures who harbor deep skepticism of NATO and of the United States.
Yet President Trump has been in politics for a decade now. It is increasingly difficult to pin his embrace of some of the most reckless, irresponsible voices in European politics on ignorance. That leaves the rather disturbing possibility that the president knows exactly what he is doing and is animated by vandalism and a desire to destroy the European project. Here’s to hoping that the next four years will prove that view wrong.
Dalibor Rohac is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington DC.
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The irony is that Hungary, which is still one of the poorer EU-states is seen as an inspiration for a right-wing version of how the USA should be.
Meloni is inspired by Gramsci but in a perverse way since she and others in her movement are trying to capture the institutions and create a new paradigm regarding culture. She is even using identity politics based on "Rome as Western Civilisation" but rejecting the republican ideals in favor of Cesarist style populism.