European leaders have had plenty of warnings about what a second term for Donald Trump could mean, but they have failed to agree on a plan. Now they must wake up to the new reality and radically change their approach.
Who would have ever imagined that we would end up in a situation that would prompt France to provide military support to Denmark in the hope of deterring threats from a bellicose U.S. president? Just three years ago, the world was shocked by Russia’s large-scale invasion of a neighboring sovereign nation. But now, it seems that Trump, the leader of the free world, and Russian President Vladimir Putin are on the same page.
Europe has had plenty of warnings about what a second Trump term could look like, but has failed to implement a plan to minimize the impact of this man who has propelled us into an era of threats and brute force, as shown in an analysis published by Politico.
In these circumstances, what are the lessons that America's Western allies should draw from the early days of Trump's reintroduction of the law of the jungle?
First and foremost, of course, the most obvious one: the next four years will be terribly tough for them.
There is no one in Washington who can tame Trump
Trump 2.0 represents a change that causes disorientation compared to the president's first term - Trump is now more triumphant, confident, and determined to ignore protective barriers, more revolutionary in how he implements the "America First" agenda.
Destruction and annulment of what has happened before is the chosen strategy for what is anticipated to be a massive realignment both domestically and internationally, and the disapproving cries from critics will only encourage an administration that sees protest as proof that it is on the right track.
Trump's doctrine pursued at home or abroad is cut from the same cloth. The president should get what he wants without constraints from Congress or legal disputes - hence the arbitrary and likely illegal suspension of foreign aid, the sudden freeze of federal assistance programs and loans, and mass firings of public officials, including inspectors general.
Internationally, it doesn't really matter, to some extent, whether Trump is actually capable of invading Greenland. He is seriously considering buying the island, refusing to rule out an invasion and the threat to a NATO ally. In the era of Trump 2.0, it's okay to try to capture territory using military threats or crushing tariffs.
Too often, Trump has been wrongly characterized as an isolationist. He is not. Essentially, he has always been a mercantilist, and his sudden expansionism is packed with his ambition to enhance the economic power of the U.S. Greenland has vast untapped mineral wealth, and 40% of U.S. maritime container traffic passes through the Panama Canal, another target of his mercantilism.
This leads us to the second lesson for America's Western allies: the options they have are tough and will come at a price, one way or another, for cash-strapped Europe.
The European bloc must start fending for itself - America no longer pays for its defense as it used to, and Trump's mercantilism will drive him to do everything possible to ensure that the U.S. thrives by selling more than it buys from other nations.
It doesn't help to think now that everything will reset in four years. There are few common points between the European institution and the powers currently ruling Washington. People from the first Trump administration with whom Europe had something to discuss, such as Mike Pompeo, James Mattis, and H.R. McMaster, have long gone.
Instead of attending a NATO Foreign Ministers meeting to set up the new transatlantic relationship, the new Secretary of State Marco Rubio simply opted for a phone call.
There is no one in Washington who can temper Trump, the publication emphasizes.
What else can Europe do now
Europe could turn all the calculations upside down and play hardball in Trump's bidding. But then it should resist, without flinching, his urgings and instigations, likely followed by increasing demands. It should certainly heed the justified U.S. request to significantly increase defense spending and bear a fairer burden for Western defense.
In such a scenario, it probably should copy Saudi Arabia and buy more weapon systems rather than focus on developing its own defense industries. By taking this path, Europe should clearly choose between Trump and China and stop trying to play both sides.
Alternatively, however, the European Union could prepare against the storm and become as tough and transactional as Trump. To retaliate when inevitable tariffs are imposed and take seriously strategic autonomy, the publication suggests.
Europe has its own economic leverage if it is determined enough to apply it. As Rym Momtaz from Carnegie Europe emphasized: "EU countries accounted for 45% of total foreign direct investment that came into the United States in 2023, according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis - worth $2.4 trillion.
Private savings accounts and European companies invest three times more in the United States than in the next region. Not only does this generate and sustain millions of jobs in the U.S., but it also contributes to stimulating innovation and industrial advancement in America in competition with China."
Furthermore, Europe accounts for 50% of all U.S. liquefied natural gas exports and 28% of all U.S. natural gas exports. From 2019 to 2023, it received over a quarter of U.S. arms exports - an increase from 11% between 2014 and 2018 and buys 17% of overall U.S. exports.
American exporters would scream in pain if they started facing tariffs as retaliation.
But beyond that, engaging in a retaliation war with Trump would mean a total rethink of Europe's geopolitics and its place in the world. It would require reshaping the transatlantic relationship as Washington actively tries to divide the bloc by approaching its members on a bilateral basis and encouraging ideological allies on the continent - such as Viktor Orbán of Hungary and Robert Fico of Slovakia - to fracture EU unity.
European leaders have much to reproach themselves for. They wasted time and kept talking while doing too little to protect the EU from Trump. They played out the nightmare scenario of his return in their minds, instead of preparing for it.
The EU should have grown up long ago - now it may be forced to do so.
T.D.