The EU’s worst nightmare has come true: Donald Trump is returning to the White House. It’s not difficult to picture the panic that must be sweeping through Europe’s capitals. Most European leaders, after all, have spent the past four years undermining the EU’s strategic interests by submissively aligning themselves with the Biden Administration’s reckless foreign policy everywhere from China to Gaza. The result? Europe today is more politically, economically and militarily vassalised to America than at any point since 1945.
More to the point, European elites have allowed themselves to be dragged by Washington into a disastrous proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, condemning their citizens to collapsing industry and rising prices. That’s even as the conflict in Eastern Europe exposes the continent to unprecedented military risks, including the genuine possibility of nuclear war. Yet despite all these sacrifices, all that eagerness to do the Pentagon’s bidding, Trump’s isolationist bent means it could ultimately all be for nothing.
For the past few years, the EU’s leaders have framed their entire foreign policy in American terms. Nato expansionism; economically decoupling from Russia; supporting Ukraine’s victory-at-all-costs strategy — each has been justified in the name of preserving the transatlantic alliance, even at the expense of Europe’s actual interests. Under Biden, that meant embracing a hawkish agenda grounded in aggressively countering any challenges to US hegemony, all supposedly part of an existential struggle between democracy and tyranny.
But with Trump back in charge, and his administration likely to pursue an isolationist bent, all these sacrifices risk being pointless. Though the president-elect is unlikely to withdraw from Nato altogether, he has expressed scepticism towards the alliance during his campaign. Among other things, that has involved criticising European countries for failing to meet defence spending targets, even suggesting that the US might not protect Nato members if they don’t pull their weight.
It’s easy to see why this prospect alarms the EU establishment. For years, they have backed the “mutually reinforcing roles” of Nato and the European Union, both as a bulwark against Russia and to ensure Western dominance globally. A weakened US commitment to Nato therefore threatens the very foundations of the EU’s newfound ideological identity: an extension of the American umbrella. No less important, the potential withdrawal of American arms and cash from Kyiv would seriously hamper the EU’s ability to continue the proxy war in Ukraine alone, especially given the tight finances and sluggish military-industrial complex of many member states. Trump himself has hinted in just this direction, notably criticising Volodymyr Zelenskyy for allegedly starting the war with Putin.
Trump has even suggested he might unilaterally impose a ceasefire and peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine. This is unlikely to happen: Russia, which is winning on the battlefield, will push for such a hard bargain that even Trump may struggle to accept. A more likely outcome, then, is that the incoming Republican administration will continue to deliver weapons to Kyiv but ask Europe to foot the bill — a situation that would allow the conflict to smoulder on, even as Europe gets poorer. That’s despite the fact that even Western media outlets are now conceding that the war in Ukraine is lost.
Join the discussion
Join like minded readers that support our journalism by becoming a paid subscriber
To join the discussion in the comments, become a paid subscriber.
Join like minded readers that support our journalism, read unlimited articles and enjoy other subscriber-only benefits.
SubscribeThis author mistakes his own opinions for facts. Truly, unless he is a mind-reader, he does not know what DJT will do. His first term perhaps offers some clues …. he will firmly encourage Europeans nations to do the right thing and pony up for their own defense.
About NATO, it is eminently unfair for America to pour a huge proportion of its GDP into the military, while European nations save money and pay for generous social welfare programs. To protect the vineyard is as important as planting your vines …..
We applauded Trump when he berated NATO members for not spending enough on defense. If Europeans want NATO, then they have to spend 2% of GDP or more on defense.
Besides defense, NATO and the EU need to revisit their Green policies. Perhaps some of you remember President Trump calling our Germany in a UN speech for being too dependent on Russian oil and gas. He was right.
Wow, the us didn’t force these policies on the eu. Russia and their own bad decisions did that. Who would have thought being weak and dependent on Russia could go wrong?
There is a weird strain of conspiracy theorist who believes Biden and the neocons bewitched all the Europeans to go all in on the Ukraine because … why?
It’s unclear to me why this narrative continues to persist. If you talk to the average Northern European, they’re not thrilled about russia flexing its muscles.
Let’s not call Trump’s foreign policy “isolationism.” Let’s call it Monroe Doctrine 2.0.
And let’s not forget Monty’s advice. Rule One: Don’t invade Russia. Rule Two: Don’t invade China.
Personally, my solution to the Ukraine problem is to rename Lviv as Lemberg, as it was in the good old days of Austria-Hungary when Lemberg was the capital of Galicia and Austrian economist von Mises was born.
For American readers: Fazi is part of a small minority in Europe which thinks like this. People like me, think his views are deranged. Putin is not a conservative by any means. He’s an ethno-nationalist who wants to recreate the Soviet Union, with a crony capitalist economy. He is certainly not our friend.