-Analysis-
PARIS — The rhetorical formula comes from Thierry Breton, the current European Commissioner for Internal Markets: Is Europe doomed to have its fate determined every four years by a handful of American voters? It has never seemed more accurate than right now, with the American primaries effectively already over, and voters on the other side of the Atlantic set to replay the Biden-Trump faceoff of 2020 on November 5.
Having spent the past few years either confident or indifferent about the impossibility of a Trump return, Europeans now see the possibility, even probability, of a victory for the Republican candidate. It’s playing out like a horror film.
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The wake-up call came last month with Donald Trump’s provocative speech abandoning to the Russians those NATO countries that weren’t paying their share of military budgets. Since then, not only has Trump knocked out Nikki Haley, an old-fashioned Republican internationalist, but he is leading in the polls, both nationally and in the “swing” states that will make the difference.
The specter of a new Donald Trump mandate is therefore beginning to imprint itself on the brains of European leaders, traumatized by his first stint in the White House, and whom the election of a European-minded Joe Biden had not only reassured them, but essentially lulled them to sleep.
This concern plays an important role in Emmanuel Macron’s change of tone on Ukraine; his passing phrase not ruling out sending military personnel there; and his plea against “cowardice” this week in Prague.
Some EU leaders might discreetly make the trip to try to ingratiate themselves with the newly-elected president.
But we are far from military intervention, if only because the seeds of division were again sown among the “27” of Europe when this debate was launched. It is a time, however, when American aid to Kyiv has already reached an impasse, and Ukraine is going through a rough patch.
One European diplomat predicted this week that, should Trump be elected in November, there is even a risk that some EU leaders will discreetly make the trip to try to ingratiate themselves with the newly-elected president…
Nevertheless, the shock of a Trump win would be immense, with Russia emboldened by an innerward-looking America, and an Atlantic alliance deprived of leadership. The worst is never certain, but we must be prepared for it.
Thus Ukraine stands as the testing ground for Europeans’ ability to decide together and act. Not to wage war on Russia — nobody is proposing this, and nobody would support it – but to prevent Ukraine from having to negotiate a capitulation with Moscow, for which Europe would later pay dearly.
Europe must not rely on the good will of the United States.
This will undoubtedly form a major part of the debate in the European elections in June; and it will be at the heart of the major European and transatlantic meetings in the coming months, culminating in the NATO 75th Anniversary Summit in Washington in July, with the U.S. elections looming.
It’s not a debate about “for or against the Americans,” but about “for or against Europe”. Or, as Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk put it so bluntly last month: “Europe must not rely on the good will of the United States to defend it, because it will sooner or later end in disaster.” A disaster that could be called… Donald Trump.
