Trump Has No Brakes but Europe Still Has a Choice
The US president’s threats are not noise but a strategy to subordinate the continent — and Europe’s flattery has only raised the price of inaction. A commentary by Nathalie Tocci
It is increasingly clear that the US president, Donald Trump, no longer has any restraints. Trump is not unpredictable: his words — often ungrammatical — and his actions are strikingly clear. What is less clear is whether Europeans will respond accordingly.
There are no longer any guardrails on the American president’s statements. Hardly a week passes without Trump threatening military action against some country: yesterday Iran, today Greenland, tomorrow who knows.
He even justifies his wars by claiming he was denied the Nobel Peace Prize — as he wrote in a message to Norway’s prime minister, Jonas Gahr Støre, later made public.
If this were fiction, it would be dismissed as trashy melodrama. But the threats of the US president are not merely empty. Sliding towards authoritarianism and commanding the most powerful military arsenal in the world, Trump is ever more willing to use it — without even maintaining the pretence of respecting international law.
In a single year we have seen a war against Iran and a military strike in Venezuela, alongside interventions in Yemen, Syria and Nigeria. A second war against Tehran has, for now, been put on hold. In the meantime, Trump’s military ambitions have swivelled towards Greenland.
In the Middle East, the American president heeds the counsel of caution coming from his Gulf allies — drawn to their money and to political systems that align with the neo-feudalism he aspires to. In Europe, we do not enjoy the same fortune.
Trump and his administration harbour a visceral antipathy towards Europe, its institutions and its liberal democracies. And it is Europe — alongside Latin America — that increasingly finds itself in the crosshairs.
The contempt for Europe is plain in words and deeds, including the ever more frequent mockery of European leaders. When Trump publishes a private message sent to him by Mark Rutte, he is not simply boasting; he is underscoring the Nato secretary-general’s subservience.
When he makes public Emmanuel Macron’s less embarrassing — but still conciliatory — message, he does so to highlight that, even if the French president talks tough in public — invoking the EU’s anti-coercion instrument against the US and refusing to join Trump’s “Peace Council” — the tune changes in private.
Trump’s objective is to subordinate Europe as he builds an empire in the western hemisphere. He does so by dividing Europeans through support for nationalist rightwing parties and governments, by attacking with tariffs and military threats, and by humiliating the continent in words and gestures. In short, while Europeans once comforted themselves with the illusion that the US president should be taken seriously but not literally, today we can say the opposite: Trump should not be taken seriously — but he must be taken literally.
If this is evident, Europe’s response is not. Over the past year, European leaders have flattered and indulged the American president, convinced that this tactic would contain his excesses and buy time. It has not worked. If transatlantic relations have reached their lowest point, it is also because Europe behaved this way. Trump bullied; the bullying paid; and so he keeps bullying.
What comes next is even less clear. Is this the moment for Europe to stiffen its spine? In some cases, hope is scant, if not non-existent. Nato, the most glaring case, is unlikely to react by acknowledging American betrayal. Its secretary-general will be the last violinist on the Titanic to stop playing.
For the EU there is a sliver of hope.
This week’s European Council is unlikely to deploy the anti-coercion instrument — which would restrict US companies’ access to the European market — in response to the new wave of US tariffs threatened against member states that had the audacity to join a military exercise in Greenland at Copenhagen’s invitation.
But it is equally difficult to imagine the EU refraining from imposing counter-tariffs on US imports if Washington goes ahead and violates the tariff agreement reached last summer in Scotland. As so often, the European Council may well conclude without grand announcements.
And yet, something is shifting. The EU has been able to act on Ukraine over the past four years. It has also reacted to Trumpian protectionism by moving ahead with a Mercosur agreement after 25 years of negotiations. It will show prompt solidarity with Denmark.
What remains to be seen is whether Europe’s actions will be decisive enough to communicate to the White House that bullying carries a price — and that for the United States, it is not worth paying it.
A previous version of this article was published by the Italian daily La Stampa
IEP@BU does not express opinions of its own. The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the authors. Any errors or omissions are the responsibility of the authors.
