Standing up to Donald Trump

The White House has just published the new United States National Security Strategy. It turns its back on the traditional description of American foreign policy as spearheading the struggle of democracies against autocracies (which was often just a smokescreen). Donald Trump’s United States no longer has any problem with the political regimes of Russia or China, which have been reduced to mere economic competitor to be fought on that terrain.
The only ones that the White House continues to truly designate as political adversaries of the United States are now the European Union and the democratic European governments. This document clearly shows the Trump administration’s desire to bring about ‘regime change’ on the old continent by supporting the European far right.

The United States has only one real enemy left: democratic Europe

At the same time, following the €120 million fine imposed on his company, Elon Musk tweeted that ‘the European Union must be abolished’, a statement immediately supported by Dmitry Medvedev, the former president of Russia. If there was still any need to convince that Donald Trump’s United States and the tech oligarchs who support him are no longer allies of democratic Europe but its enemies, things are now clear. Indeed, the American president cannot be accused of hiding what he intends to do…
As demonstrated by the latest affronts imposed on Europe by Donald Trump and his Russian cronies in the Ukrainian affair, the low profile adopted by the leaders of the EU and its main Member States over the past year is not working: Donald Trump only respects, and yields to, those who resist him.
We must therefore stand firm, not only on Ukraine, of course, but also on European digital regulation in particular. We must denounce and fight without hesitation the unacceptable interference of Donald Trump and the tech oligarchs in the internal affairs of the EU and its Member States. The future of our democracies and our freedoms is at stake.

American tech giants are highly dependent on Europe

Contrary to popular belief, this battle is not lost in advance. Europe is certainly extremely dependent on American digital giants and has no alternative to replace them in the short term, but the reverse is also true. American tech champions are increasingly being excluded from the Chinese market, the Indian market and many other countries in the Global South. Outside the United States, the main large, solvent market to which they have access is the EU. We may depend on them, but they also depend on us to a significant extent, and we must use this to our advantage.

More broadly, we must now uncompromisingly defend democracy, freedoms and European humanist values against the authoritarianism, masculinism and white supremacism championed by Donald Trump and MAGA conservatives. This is indeed what needs to be emphasised today, rather than the defence of the European Union as such. It is, of course, essential to strengthen the common European institutions in order to resist the alliance between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, but this will also require a profound transformation of the Union. Its dysfunctions are indeed massive and very debilitating. They contribute to the rise of the far right on the old continent and to the resonance that Trump’s anti-European rhetoric finds among our fellow citizens. Anti-Trump Europeans must not appear to be defenders of the status quo.

The far right, Trojan horse of American imperialism

Here too, the battle is not necessarily lost in advance, contrary to the defeatism that is often prevalent today. Admittedly, many Europeans are hostile to ‘Brussels’ and sensitive to Donald Trump’s masculinist or anti-immigrant rhetoric, or dream of a strong government. And in the immediate term, his return to the White House has probably helped to boost the far right in Europe. But the fact remains that, ultimately, this could be more of a handicap. Indeed, how can the far right, which claims to be nationalist and sovereigntist, justify now appearing to be the instrument, the Trojan horse of American imperialism in Europe, in addition to also supporting the war criminal Vladimir Putin? It is already often embarrassed by Donald Trump’s anti-European initiatives.

We can also anticipate that the economic and social situation will deteriorate in the United States itself, under the impact of the inept measures taken by Donald Trump. The threats to all Americans resulting from the arbitrary nature of his administration’s freedom-destroying actions will become increasingly apparent. The same is true of the unprecedented corruption of Trumpist leaders. As a result, tensions within American society are likely to increase further.

The worsening American crisis will turn Europeans away from the far right

This worsening of the American crisis under the impact of Trump’s policies should ultimately frighten the French and other Europeans and turn them away from the far right. Internal dynamics within the country have undoubtedly played a major role, but it cannot be ruled out that the excesses of MAGA may also have contributed to the defeat of Geert Wilders and his far-right party in the Dutch elections held last October.

We could be witnessing a dynamic that is the opposite of what we saw in the 1920s and 1930s between a Europe that had succumbed to fascism and a United States that ultimately resisted this temptation. At that time, racism and eugenics were widespread in the United States, a country marked by racial discrimination and the Ku Klux Klan, and the American far right was very powerful.

Much like Elon Musk today, Henry Ford, the inventor of the car for all, was a fanatical anti-Semite and a fervent supporter of Adolf Hitler, as was aviator Charles Lindbergh, who was the first to fly across the Atlantic. The American pro-Nazi party even gathered 20,000 people at Madison Square Garden in New York. However, faced with the excesses of the fascists and rising tensions leading to war in Europe, American voters ultimately turned away from the far right in favour of Franklin D. Roosevelt and his New Deal to deal with the consequences of the 1929 crisis. They eventually entered the world war against the Nazis and their allies.

Turning resolutely towards the rest of the world

In this context, in order not to be crushed between Donald Trump on one side and Vladimir Putin allied with Xi Jinping on the other, we must now turn resolutely towards the rest of the world, other developed countries, but also and above all those in the South, to seek new allies both geopolitically and geoeconomically. With Brazil, India, South Africa, Indonesia, Japan, Canada, Korea and many others, we must act together not only to preserve but also to reinvent multilateralism in order to prevent empires from imposing again on us the logic of might makes rights. However, this implies abandoning the logic of a ‘fortress Europe’ that seeks to barricade itself against its neighbours in the southern Mediterranean.

In short, faced with a Donald Trump who no longer hides his desire to break up the European Union and fight democracy in Europe, we must now stand together to defend our democratic values. In this decisive battle for the future, defeatism has no place and hope is allowed.