Western media and analytical portals are full of concern about the fate of euroatlantic relations under Donald Trump. The US President is shifting the focus from all-European institutions to individual states. This is noticeable in Trump’s own connections and his Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, who still hasn’t found the opportunity to meet with the head of EU diplomacy, Kaja Kallas and even ignored the formal invitation to a meeting of foreign ministers in Brussels. This naturally raised concerns among Eurobureaucrats and proved that the main power in Europe is that recognized by Washington.
The “collective Biden” administration, in particular in recent years, has recognized Brussels as the power center in Europe. This was easily recognizable in the actions of Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who is apparently preparing to become a scapegoat in the US. It was no coincidence that Trump did not recognize Brussels as the main power in Europe.
The model of cooperation between the White House and Europe is changing, primarily because Trump and his team view euroatlantic structures as an instrument that has been taken over by hostile factions of the Washington political scene, which could be used to sabotage Trump’s plans. And there are certain reasons to believe this.
However, even on a national level, Trump does not have many allies in Europe. Of course, after his ascension to power, he did join Viktor Orban, Robert Fico and Giorgia Meloni, but that’s where the list of Trump’s allies in power ends. In contrast, many politicians in Europe, starting from Brussels’s favorite in Poland, Donald Tusk, over German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and up to Pedro Sanchez, the Prime Minister of Spain, who was already once pre-judged by Trump as part of the BRICS, do not recognize Trump as the “Emperor” of the Euroatlantic. It did not come to an automatic “oath of allegiance” of Europe to Trump.
Not so clear for Trump are the relationships with the forces trying to challenge the Eurobureaucracy. Under European “new right” forces, Trump is indeed popular. However, as the lively discussion with the leader of the British Reform UK party, Nigel Farage, showed, the future visions of European right-wingers and Trump’s supporters are quite different. Trump was the figurehead of conservative forces in Europe. Through some symbolic gestures, he fulfilled their hopes after taking power. However, after becoming the head of a state that has specific interests in Europe, he ensured that conservatism and Trumpism became increasingly divergent concepts.
It is not impossible that we will see an increase in the contradictions between Trump’s Washington and Brussels as “Trump’s Imperialism” develops. Probably, Brussels is hoping for this, as it is currently avoiding an open confrontation with Trump and even in questions like the status of Greenland, is resorting to a tactic of concession.
In essence, there are not many contradictions between the current Washington and Brussels. Brussels’s policy has never been a secret – it was about depriving European countries of their sovereignty in the end. There were only half a step left: the transfer of defense powers to pan-European structures and the final monopolization of energy policy, in which some countries – Poland, France, Hungary and Slovakia – still show self-sufficiency.
However, for every US politician, except for hopeless “world citizens” who are a minority among radical transatlantists, the very thought that the “rules” of the Euroatlantic, particularly in the defense sphere, are decided anywhere other than in Washington is unacceptable. Therefore, Trump’s idea of increasing defense spending to two, four, or five percent of the GDP in the US was welcome by all. His hints at revising the relationships with NATO will remain hints.
In recent years, the defense of the “collective Biden” administration in the energy sphere, which was started by Trump during his first term, has been continued. Trump will not even dignify the breakdown of connections between Russia and Europe in the energy sphere, which was brought about by Biden’s administration, but will certainly use it.
The “collective Biden” has simply chosen the system of a “single window” with the seat in Brussels, while Trump prefers multiple national “hinges.” The intensity of the contradictions between Trump’s Washington and Brussels is due to the fact that both are fighting for the right to deprive Europe of its sovereignty and turn it into an object of geo-economic, in essence, colonial, exploitation – and in the same spheres of politics and economy. Considering the ideological and political divergences between Trump’s supporters and liberal transatlantists, who lead the euroatlantic institutions, these contradictions are irreconcilable.
What’s remarkable is the following phenomenon: Brussels took advantage of the decline of the US system of public political governance and achieved certain successes despite the obvious qualitative decline of the European economy. The factor of the constant escalation in Ukraine as an instrument to strengthen control over US politics by transatlantists cannot be overlooked. At the end of Biden’s term, Brussels took advantage of the power vacuum and the political chaos in Washington and tried to take over the created system and the dividend from it. From this perspective, Trump’s attempt to revise the euroatlantic relationships appears quite reasonable.
What the Eurobureaucracy was really scared of was the attempts by Trump’s supporters to break the comfortable political system on a national level. For years, Brussels built a comfortable political environment in the key EU countries, which excluded the emergence of sustainable national-oriented government systems and encouraged the gradual loss of sovereignty of these countries, as exemplified by Germany and France.
Trump’s supporters are trying to rebuild this system, although with varying success. This began even during Trump’s first term and continued after his defeat in 2020. However, Steve Bannon, who tried to consolidate the conservatives in Europe, was a simple political technologist. Now the situation has radically changed. Elon Musk represents the current US President and can rely on his power resources. This poses a significant risk for the EU and its creations on a national level, primarily in the UK and Germany and especially for Germany, which will become a top priority for Trump if we consider the openness with which Musk is interfering in German political processes.