What Trump Means for Europe
From Paris to Prague, a lack of U.S. leadership could lead to crack-up.
This article is brought to you by American Purpose, the magazine and community founded by Francis Fukuyama in 2020, which is now proudly part of the Persuasion family.
Even if you are from Slovakia, the odds are that you were not aware of the existence of a place named Smilno, population 689: a village tucked away in the country’s northeastern corner. That is until mid-November, when its pro-Russian mayor, Vladimír Baran, made headlines by personally delivering a check for €52,000, from a fundraiser the local council had organized under his direction, to Russian authorities in Moscow. Adding insult to injury, the mayor, who once served in the Slovak military, decided to hand over the funds, meant to help “Russian citizens in the Kursk region,” wearing his full military regalia, effectively implicating the Slovak Defense Forces in his stunt.
This extraordinary act of idiocy provides a flavor of things to come in Eastern Europe if the new U.S. administration delivers on some of its key campaign promises. Far from focusing minds on the Russian threat and ensuring that Europe is collectively able to deter and contain its enemies, the lack of U.S. leadership risks fragmenting the continent and handing over a series of political wins to Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping.
What is President Trump promising?
First, when he returns to the Oval Office, Trump will likely slap tariffs on European exports. There are voices calling for a review of European tech firms trying to offer their services in the United States, or for kicking EU firms out of defense technology and procurement—in part as a response to the growing regulatory divergence between the U.S. and Europe. The EU’s upcoming Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, a de facto tariff on imports from high polluting countries, will be another sticking point in the transatlantic relationship.
Second, Trump will seek to impose a deal to bring Russia’s war against Ukraine to a permanent (or temporary) halt. What contours this settlement will take, if any, is unclear—what is clear is that a “land for peace” agreement is unlikely in a world in which Russia seeks to destroy Ukraine as an independent nation. Relatedly, Trump’s skepticism toward NATO, exemplified by his pick of a thoroughly unqualified ambassador to the alliance, is well known. Even in the best-case scenario, the next administration can be expected to push for a lessened conventional presence in Europe, including on the Eastern flank.
Third, there is America’s soft power. A policy of benign neglect toward America’s Eastern European allies and their domestic politics will likely make a return, for good and for ill. The morning after the November election, I ran into a gleeful Hungarian diplomat at a think-tank event, who was taking great joy in the fact that unlike the current administration, Americans “won’t be lecturing us anymore” under Trump. Rethinking how U.S. public diplomacy engages on various progressive causes, from the rights of asylum seekers to the LGBTQI+ portfolio, might be in order—the apathy, however, will likely extend to questions of corruption, entrenchment by budding autocrats from Viktor Orbán to Bidzina Ivanishvili, and perhaps even to Chinese economic influence.
In principle, Europeans should know the ‘right’ answers to these policy challenges. The recent Draghi Report on “The future of European competitiveness,” ordered by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, outlines a plethora of avenues for deep structural reforms and increases in investment. The survival of a free Ukraine, for example, depends on the EU’s ability to mobilize sufficient financial and military assistance to plug the hole left by a U.S. withdrawal—to police the peace and to keep Kyiv on track in its accession. If the United States turns its back on NATO, fully or partially, Europeans will need to step in. According to a 2019 report by the International Institute of Strategic Studies (predating the current war in Ukraine), Europeans would need to increase defense spending by around $300 billion a year to maintain the existing level of capabilities following a U.S. withdrawal.
These tasks might be hard, but they’re doable—under the right political conditions. Unfortunately, Trump’s political effect on Europe is bound to fragment and divide the continent—and bring out the worst in political leaders. Consider Italy’s prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, who has repeatedly demonstrated her commitment to Ukraine’s European future. Alas, the broader political support for that position runs an inch deep. Of all the problems that Trump’s return to the White House will pose for her, protecting the continued access of Italy’s goods exports to the U.S. market will likely take precedence over standing firm with Eastern Europeans against Russia.
In Eastern Europe itself, appeasement is already gaining currency. Forget about Slovakia and Hungary, which may have been a lost cause to begin with. In Romania, a far-right pro-Russian candidate, Călin Georgescu, has broken through—against every expectation—into the run-off of the presidential election. Whether his success is driven explicitly by Trump’s victory or not is almost immaterial. What matters is that the mood has shifted—and not in a direction that would allow Europe to respond coherently to the challenge posed by the Trump presidency.
In Prague, Andrej Babiš—a former communist secret police agent, an oligarch, and a self-styled advocate of “peace”—may lead a governing coalition replacing the incumbent government later in 2025, thus removing another piece from the coalition of concerned Eastern European countries. With a lame-duck president in Paris, it would take a heroic effort on the part of Germany’s likely future chancellor, Friedrich Merz, to restore European unity and give it a meaningful policy bite.
Smaller groupings of countries, the Nordics, the Balts, and the Poles, will do their best. Indeed, their survival might depend on it. But, like the regional alliances of the 1930s, it may not be enough to keep aggressors at bay. What might, however, is a radical rethink of the incoming administration’s Europe policy—and a recognition that the bipartisan consensus about the primacy of Europe’s security to U.S. global interests existed for decades for a reason.
Dalibor Rohac is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington DC. He is on X at @DaliborRohac.
Follow Persuasion on X, LinkedIn, and YouTube to keep up with our latest articles, podcasts, and events, as well as updates from excellent writers across our network.
And, to receive pieces like this in your inbox and support our work, subscribe below:
So paradoxical that support for Russia is strong in post-communist parts of Europe that used to be more or less under the control from Moscow
The most likely ‘truth’ here is that Trump neither understands nor wishes to understand the complexities of European politics, nor the deep history behind them. He merely wants everybody to do what he says, since he, of course, is the smartest guy in the room.