Is Trump the President of Europe?
PARIS – EU leaders “jokingly call me the president of Europe,” Donald Trump claimed at a recent press conference. As bizarre as that sounds, it does have a slight ring of truth. For seven months, Europe has desperately sought to placate the US president, usually with groveling displays of sycophancy designed to play to Trump’s unbridled narcissism.
Accordingly, when Trump recently grumbled some encouraging remarks about supporting Ukraine, European leaders saw it as the hard-won result of their self-abasement strategy. But when Trump made more ominous remarks, they rushed to the White House. Either way, it is Trump calling the shots, because European leaders refuse even to countenance a rupture with the US.
But kowtowing to Trump will not make him any less unpredictable. His capriciousness is not just a personality trait; it is a modus operandi. Trump seeks to instill insecurity in others, so that they cannot organise a potent or coherent response. Although he claims otherwise, Trump wants Europeans to be more dependent on the US, even as he detaches the US from Europe’s fate.
If Trump had definitively withdrawn US support for Ukraine, he would have pushed Europe away, yielding no psychological or economic gain. Equally, if he had expressed firm support for Ukraine, he would have become predictable, sapping much of his power over European leaders. He did neither, because sowing doubt about his intentions is the point.
With this strategy in mind, consider the recent trade “deal” that Trump made with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. Here, Europe made four major concessions without getting anything in return.
First, it accepted the “America First” narrative that US-European economic relations are unbalanced in Europe’s favour. Even though America’s current-account balance with Europe is almost balanced, European leaders blithely affirmed Trump’s falsehood and accepted responsibility for solving a problem that does not exist. Worse, Europe then endorsed the idea that this fake imbalance should be replaced by a real one: US imports from Europe will now be hit with a 15 per cent tariff, while American exports to Europe will face no tariffs. Even more serious are the threats of new retaliatory tariffs against European regulations such as the Digital Services Act and the Digital Markets Act, even though, according to von der Leyen, the EU-US trade agreement was supposed to stabilize transatlantic relations. If Trump imposes additional sanctions against Europe, will von der Leyen finally decide to activate the Anti-Coercion Instrument that she has so far refused to use?
No less serious are the commitments to increase European energy imports to $250 billion per year, compared to only around $65 billion today, and to invest an additional $200 billion each year in the US. Finally, Europe has made an unquantified commitment to purchase more US military equipment, even though it is supposed to be Europeanising its defense and strengthening its manufacturing base accordingly.
Europe’s subordination has been so internalised that most European leaders eagerly welcomed the chance to finance a $100 billion Ukrainian bid to purchase American military equipment. That is four times what Europeans have committed to Ukraine this year, and more than all the European military aid furnished to Ukraine since 2022.
Not only are Europeans deepening their dependence on US arms as a means of flattering Trump; they are doing so at a time when their own largest military-industrial project – a joint venture to create a next-generation fighter jet – is being threatened by a dispute between Dassault and Airbus.
Meanwhile, Trump made two major concessions at his recent summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska. He accepted the idea that there could be peace negotiations without a ceasefire, and he parroted the argument that the conflict might be resolved with a “land swap” – a euphemism for Ukraine ceding sovereign territory to the foreign power that invaded it. Not only did Trump accept Putin’s terms in these respects, but he did so without any European leader being publicly involved.
Clearly, Europe’s failure to devise a strategy for dealing with Russia cannot continue. To develop a plan that does not depend on Trump’s whims, European leaders should focus on three priorities. First, the European Union must fully commit to facilitating Ukrainian accession to the bloc even in the absence of a lasting peace, though this does not mean that Ukraine should get a free pass on meeting the membership criteria. The idea that Europe should defend Ukraine without asking questions about corruption or other matters is a non-starter.
The second priority is to provide Ukraine with security guarantees. These are essential, but Europe cannot currently supply them, because Germany, Poland, and Italy have so far ruled out deploying troops in Ukraine. These issues will need to be resolved. While supporting Ukraine and strengthening Europe’s military are compatible objectives, they are operationally difficult to reconcile in the short and medium term.
Finally, the most delicate question concerns dialogue with Russia. Europe’s refusal to talk to Putin gives Trump even more influence over the course of events. If European leaders had been present in Alaska, or if Trump called Putin from Washington in presence of the Europeans, things obviously would have turned out differently. But Trump wants to be the ultimate arbiter who refuses to take sides, which means deliberately putting the aggressor and the aggressed on the same footing.
Europeans must face reality. At this stage, the least-bad solution would be to request a quadripartite conference that includes Russia, Ukraine, Europe, and the US. Even if such an exercise feels useless at first, fresh dynamics could emerge over time, especially if Ukraine continues to inflict damage to Russian economic infrastructure.
Success in international politics is shaped by three factors: the principles you defend, the balance of forces that underly your reality, and your will to act. Europe has the first, and it understands the second. Whether it can check the third box remains to be seen.
(Zaki Laïdi is a professor at Sciences Po. Courtesy www.project-syndicate.org)
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