A VIEW FROM EUROPE

IT’S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD

Listen

0:00

The rest of the world is looking on with disbelief at the recent developments in the United States. It seems inconceivable that a man who engineered a failed coup attempt against the US government in January 2021 has been re-elected president and will once again enter the Oval Office on January 20th 2025.

From a non-American perspective, the original Tea Party movement and, more importantly, the Republican Party per se, has been phagocyted by Trump, and we are witnessing a real-life Alice in Wonderland tea party with Trump as the Mad Hatter.

In Europe, more specifically, disbelief has given way to shock and downright fear as Trump confidently declared on February 10th at a rally in South Carolina that he would encourage Russia “to do whatever the hell they want” to any NATO country that is “delinquent” in paying its dues to the USA.[i]

Notwithstanding the fact that the European Member States of NATO do not owe any dues to the USA for membership, such a statement from Trump shouldn’t be a surprise as, during his presidency, he already threatened to withdraw from NATO[ii] as the US was paying “90% of the costs of protecting Europe” which is simply not true or misleading at best.[iii] What is new in Trump’s latest outburst is the fact that he openly is inviting Russia to invade the so-called delinquent NATO countries, destroying the primary deterrent of NATO enshrined in Article 5 of the treaty, whereby an attack on one Member is an attack on all and that the attacked ally will receive assistance from the other Members.

It is worthwhile noting that the only time Article 5 has ever been invoked was on September 12th 2001, less than 24 hours after the Al Qaeda terrorist attacks. This was more than a symbolic gesture as NATO allies participated in the War Against Terror with ground troops, resulting in the deaths of more than 850 soldiers (the US lost 2’461 soldiers). Such a sacrifice should not and cannot be ignored and should put to shame any other accounting-type comparisons favoured by Trump.

While the NATO countries spend less than the US (3.49%)  as a percentage of GDP (except for Poland, which is at 3.9%), the NATO countries are increasing their spending to reach the 2% threshold. As of 2023, this threshold had been met by 10 Members, and an additional eight members should reach that percentage in 2024.[iv]

The US defence budget is not only destined for Europe, and the NATO alliance has been the cornerstone of the Pax Americana since the Second World War. It has ensured not only peace and stability in Europe for over 80 years but also the ultimate victory in the Cold War and the defeat of Soviet-led communism.

The European reaction to Trump’s latest statement was best summarised by the new Polish Prime Minister, Donald Tusk, who declared, “NATO is all for one, and one for all.”[v] Given the historical context, such a declaration from a Polish official carries all the more weight.

Poland, perhaps more than any other European country, suffered terribly during the Second World War and was invaded both by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union in September 1939 after the infamous Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact with a secret protocol partitioning Poland between them. Despite having an alliance with France and the United Kingdom, Poland was left alone to face the dual invasion and was swiftly defeated. The Katyn massacre of over 22’000 Polish officers and members of the Polish intelligentsia in April and May 1940 by the Soviet NKVD illustrates the tragic consequences of the Nazi-Soviet pact. In a cruel twist of fate, the Polish President Lech Kaczyński and his extended delegation of Polish dignitaries died in the 2010 airplane crash at Smolensk on their way to commemorate the Katyn massacre.

In August 1944, the Warsaw Uprising conducted by the Free Polish Army was expecting the help and support of the Red Army camped across the Vistula River less than five kilometres from the centre of Warsaw, to no avail. The Red Army witnessed as a mere spectator the utter destruction of the Capital city in October 1944 and the defeat of the Polish insurrectionists only to “liberate” Warsaw in January 1945.

The subject of mutual defence is understandably a susceptible topic in Poland to this day. It is, therefore, no surprise that Poland is investing heavily in its defence budget as it shares not only a border with Belarus but with Russia proper with a 210 km long Poland-Kaliningrad border. Although it has not been officially confirmed, NATO believes that the Iskander missiles stationed in the Russian territory are equipped with nuclear warheads.[vi]

The Russian threat is a genuine existential danger to Poland, and the average person on the street is very wary and sceptical of the promised support of NATO allies in the eventuality of military action by Russia.

Understandably, Poland has become the vanguard of Europe in the Ukrainian crisis. History matters. Especially for Poland. As William Faulkner would say, “The past is never dead. It is not even past.” The recent speech by the new Polish foreign minister before the UN Security Council is a masterpiece that attracted international attention.[vii] He rebuts line by line the intervention of the Russian Ambassador to the UN, who was presenting a warped version of history to justify his country's invasion of Ukraine, notably accusing Poland of being the aggressor in World War II.

The weight of history on the Polish psyche cannot be underestimated. Unbeknownst to most people in Western Europe, Poland resisted the expansionist ambitions of the Bolshevik Revolution in 1918 (and incidentally protected the rest of Europe from the expansion of the Red Army westwards). The decisive victory of the Polish army at the Battle of Warsaw in 1920 during the Polish-Soviet War was as unexpected as consequential in cementing the new Polish Republic’s place in modern history. “The Miracle on the Vistula” occupies a special place in the heart of the Polish Nation and demonstrates the weight of the past in the troubled relationship between the two countries.

Compare this to Tucker Carlson’s recent disgraceful meek interview with Vladimir Putin, where he could only acquiesce with a weak “of course” when Putin claimed that Poland was responsible for Nazi Germany’s invasion.[viii]

Such a sentiment is reinforced by Trump’s bluster but also by the fact that the American Congress delayed for a long time to approve additional military support to Ukraine, resulting in a substantial weakening of Ukraine in its two-year-long war with Russia. The Republican party is taking its marching orders from Trump. Speaker Mike Johnson momentarily refused to contemplate any additional funding. He chooses to follow in Kevin McCarthys’ footsteps by making the trip down to Mar-a-Lago to “kiss the ring” on President’s Day of all days.

Europe is stuck between Trump and Putin. It is becoming increasingly clear that there is a solid pro-Putin wing in the Republican Party led by Trump who could not even bring himself to condemn Putin for the death of his main political rival, Alexei Navalny, due to a “sudden death episode” while going for “a stroll” in his Artic gulag.

In a genuinely disgraceful twist, Trump prefers to compare himself to Navalny, stating that his legal problems “are a form of Navalny” and that it is “a form of communism and fascism”.[ix] Once again, Trump perverts the true meaning of words and renders them meaningless.

Trump’s view of Europe has always been tainted with disdain and contempt, portraying the European countries as ungrateful and weak. Just before leaving for the Helsinki Summit with Putin in the summer of 2018, where he famously supported Putin over his intelligence services, Trump declared, “I think the European Union is a foe, what they do to us in trade”. Once again, it was Donald Tusk, the President of the European Council at the time, who rebutted Trump: “America and the EU are best friends. Whoever says we are foes is spreading fake news”.[x]

This negative opinion has stayed the same since 2018. Trump intends to impose an across-the-board 10% import tariff on all US imports as part of his future policies.[xi] Trump mistakenly sees trade deficits as losses and believes that tariffs are an added source of revenue. In contrast, it is, in fact, the American consumer that pays for the tariffs, not the exporting nations. America openly embraces protectionism for the first time since the “Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act” of 1930. This is a dangerous path to tread, as any unilateral tariffs will be met by corresponding tariffs on American goods, resulting in a marked decrease in international trade.

Trump imposed tariffs on European steel and aluminium, resulting in European tariffs on some US goods such as motorcycles and whisky. The Biden administration suspended the tariffs, and the truce has been extended to March 2025, i.e. after the forthcoming US election.[xii]

Now that Trump has been re-elected, one can imagine that the negotiations between the EU and the US would be tense and fraught with danger, potentially resulting in a new EU – US trade war.

Trump’s view on Europe aligns greatly with the far-right conservative parties emerging in parts of Europe. He constantly lauds Viktor Orbán from Hungary (even if he does not always correctly remember that he is Hungary's Prime Minister, not Turkey’s).[xiii] Trump is the Eurosceptic “par excellence” and is leading the Republican party in the same direction. This wing of the Republican party has traditionally seen the social democratic principles at the national and EU levels as detrimental to economic progress and contrary to American values.

In the realm of Euroscepticism, Trump has a partner in crime: Vladimir Putin. The Russian leader has always seen the EU as a threat, and a weaker EU would have less power to criticise and counteract Russia’s foreign policy—a point made all the truer by the war in Ukraine. It is no coincidence that President Zelensky of Ukraine sees swift membership of the EU as a major strategic objective.

The sum total of Trump’s past actions regarding Europe, his current statements, and his declared intentions now that he has become president again has led European leaders to fundamentally rethink their geopolitical position on the world stage.

At the recent security conference in Munich, the mood amongst European leaders was “fearful and determined rather than panicked”[xiv] and the taboo of discussing Europe’s future without the US has been broken. Although any fundamental changes will take time, there is a recognition that the status quo of liberal democracy championed by the US and its allies since 1945 is now being severely challenged by a new worldview promoted by Trump and focused on so-called national conservatism with an emphasis notably on big government, protectionism, anti-multilateralism, national identity and anti-immigration promising a return to the greatness of the past that represents more of a mirage than an achievable reality. The editor-in-chief of the much respected and very serious Economist magazine precisely discussed this in an interview with John Stewart on his return to the Daily Show.[xv]

The end of the liberal world order would usher in a period of uncertainty and potential chaos before a new balance could be found. Emerging superpowers like China and India would jockey for a more dominant position in world affairs.

Such a scenario has become a distinct probability following Trump's re-election. The success of old-fashioned liberal democrats such as Donald Tusk in Poland can check the rise of national conservatism in Europe. Marine Le Pen is not guaranteed to win the French presidential elections in 2027. The Conservatives in the UK have been voted out of office. But it is undeniable that the result of the American election and the re-election of Donald Trump will have a significant impact on the advent or not of a new international order.

[i] Kate Sullivan: “Trump says he would encourage Russia to ‘do whatever the hell they want’ to any NATO country that doesn’t pay enough“, CNN, February 11, 2024, https://edition.cnn.com/2024/02/10/politics/trump-russia-nato/index.html

[ii] “Trump Confirms He Threatened to Withdraw from NATO”, The Atlantic Council, August 23, 2018, www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/natosource/trump-confirms-he-threatened-to-withdraw-from-nato/

[iii] David Welna: “FACT CHECK: Trump's Claims On NATO Spending”, National Public Radio(NPR), July 11, 2018, www.npr.org/2018/07/11/628137185/fact-check-trumps-claims-on-nato-spending

[iv] Derek Hawkins: ”See which NATO countries spend less than 2% of their GDP on defense”, The Washington Post, February 12, 2024, www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/02/12/nato-countries-defense-spending-gdp-trump/

[v] Clea Caulcutt: NATO is ‘All for one, and one for all!’ says Poland’s Tusk after Trump’s attack”, Politico, February 12, 2024, ”www.politico.eu/article/donald-tusk-nato-donald-trump-europe-ukraine-russia-war/ 

[vi] Daniel S. Hamilton and Adrianna Pita: “ Why is Kaliningrad at the center of a new Russia-NATO faceoff?”, The Brookings Institution, June 23, 2022, www.brookings.edu/articles/why-is-kaliningrad-at-the-center-of-a-new-russia-natofaceoff

[vii] See Appendix Four for the full transcript

[viii] Emily Zemler: “Jon Stewart Takes Aim at Tucker Carlson’s Putin Interview: ‘You’re Such a Dick’”, Rolling Stone, February 20, 2024, www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-news/jon-stewart-daily-show-tucker-carlson-putin-interview-1234971049/

[ix] “Trump compares his legal troubles to the persecution of Alexei Navalny”, The Guardian, February 21, 2024, www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/feb/21/trump-compares-fraud-trial-alexei-navalny-death-russian-opposition-leader-vladimir-putin-fox-town-hall

[x] Andrew Roth, David Smith, Edward Helmore and Martin Pengelly: “Trump calls European Union a 'foe' – ahead of Russia and China, The Guardian, July 15, 2018, www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jul/15/donald-trump-vladimir-putin-helsinki-russia-indictments

[xi] Barbara Moens and Camille Gijs: “Trump’s return strikes fear into the heart of Brussels”, Politico, September 4, 2023,  www.politico.eu/article/donald-trump-european-union-reelection-trade-tariffs-steel-aluminum-fears/

[xii] Jonathan Josephs: “Europe and US extend trade truce over Trump tariffs”, BBC News, December 19, 2023, www.bbc.com/news/business-67758395#

[xiii] Seb Starcevic: “Trump praises Hungary’s ‘Viktor Orbán’ as great ‘leader of Turkey’”, Politico, October 24, 2023, https://www.politico.eu/article/trump-confuses-turkish-and-hungarian-leaders-orban-erdogan/

[xiv] “Can Europe defend itself without America?”, The Economist, February 18, 2024, www.economist.com/briefing/2024/02/18/can-europe-defend-itself-without-america

[xv] The Daily Show, “Zanny Minton Beddoes - The Economist “, https://youtu.be/7cmWbSv-GOE?si=g-sR5P-Pt9X8PGJ4