Trump's Euro Allies Are Defenseless Against MAGA
‘America First’ is here to stay, and Europeans haven't done enough to prepare for it.
In with the new.
Photographer: Kobi Wolf/BloombergThe congratulations from European leaders to US President-elect Donald Trump are flowing like champagne, which is incidentally how Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban planned to celebrate. Those on the nationalist and euroskeptic end of the political spectrum are feeling energized; those on the left are no doubt tweeting through gritted teeth. Over in France, America’s oldest ally, the mood is conflicted: President Emmanuel Macron’s English tweet offering to “work together” with Trump was followed up by a French-language tweet stridently promising a stronger, more united Europe.
Yet no amount of Trump-whispering changes the fact that the Old Continent looks woefully defenseless in the face of the coming geopolitical storm. A MAGA-Republican White House and Congress would bring the risk of more “America First” spending, punitive tariffs on European imports and fights over taxes and red tape on US tech (including Elon Musk’s.) Trump has also put collective defense under NATO’s Article 5 on notice by making it conditional on spending; his preoccupation is China, not Ukraine. The slow agony of Europe’s economic and productivity decline under Sino-American pressure makes it hard to picture a robust response, as does the soft-power-led continent’s reliance on US security.