{"id":621179,"date":"2025-12-09T01:31:25","date_gmt":"2025-12-09T01:31:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/621179\/"},"modified":"2025-12-09T01:31:25","modified_gmt":"2025-12-09T01:31:25","slug":"trump-confronts-the-eu-with-its-greatest-fear-political-interference-from-its-biggest-ally-international","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/621179\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump confronts the EU with its greatest fear: Political interference from its biggest ally | International"},"content":{"rendered":"

The era of harmony in transatlantic relations is over. For Donald Trump\u2019s United States<\/a>, Europe \u2014 with its project of values and defense of the rules-based multilateral order \u2014 is an adversary. One that must be steered back onto the illiberal and reactionary path dictated by Trumpism and followed by its European allies: the ultra-right-wing, national-populist<\/a>, and Eurosceptic Trojan Horses who seek to undermine the European Union from within. Washington, which refers to these groups as \u201cpatriotic\u201d political parties and formations, aims to promote them in its new national security strategy. This promise of interference, of meddling in European sovereignty, might sound more like something autocracies like Russia or China would do (though they would most likely keep their intentions quiet) than the historic ally that is no longer one.<\/p>\n

The document, made public in the early hours of Friday morning, outlines the Republican administration\u2019s strategy for addressing geopolitical challenges<\/a> facing the U.S. and the world. It comes at a time when U.S.-European relations are at a low point, marked by the trade war and Washington\u2019s decision to sideline Europe in negotiations to end Russia\u2019s war in Ukraine. The document makes its playbook abundantly clear. \u201cOur objective should be to help Europe correct its current trajectory,\u201d it states. And that implies \u201ccultivating resilience,\u201d it continues.<\/p>\n

This is something that Washington has historically done, as during the Cold War<\/a>. \u201cThe difference is that back then it was done in the name of democratic values,\u201d notes Ian Lesser, a distinguished fellow at the German Marshall Fund think tank, who also points out that the strategy reflects Trump\u2019s preference for dealing and negotiating with specific individuals, parties, or governments, rather than with organizations and entities like the EU.<\/p>\n

The age-old divide-and-conquer strategy aims to weaken the bloc of 27 countries and 450 million inhabitants. It seeks to undermine the EU, as Russia has already attempted \u2014 a tactic echoed in the U.S. administration\u2019s document, which appears to have more affinity for the Kremlin than for Brussels.<\/p>\n

Now, Trump is leveraging his power and social media reach to boost parties aligned with MAGA ideology<\/a>. These include far-right groups like Alternative for Germany<\/a>, which the U.S. president endorsed in last year\u2019s elections. His tech magnates are also working hard to shape a Europe that suits their interests or benefits their businesses, with less regulation and weaker consumer and data protections. And they are using blackmail to achieve this, suggesting they could recalibrate their tariff policies if Europe weakens its technology regulations, a senior EU source notes.<\/p>\n

The national security strategy is a veritable written declaration of cultural warfare. It aligns perfectly with what U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance declared at the Munich Security Conference last February. His speech \u2014 in which he asserted that freedom of expression \u201cis under attack in Europe\u201d \u2014 shocked those who still considered themselves his allies, and who must have realized then that things have changed.<\/p>\n

There are still those who hold out hope, however. At least publicly. \u201cThe U.S. is still our biggest ally,\u201d said High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaja Kallas<\/a> on Saturday at the Doha Forum in Qatar. \u201cI think we haven\u2019t always seen eye to eye on different topics, but I think the overall principle is still there. We are the biggest allies and we should stick together,\u201d the EU\u2019s top diplomat affirmed<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cDear American friends, Europe is your closest ally, not your problem,\u201d Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk emphasized. \u201cAnd we have common enemies. At least that\u2019s how it has been in the last 80 years. We need to stick to this, this is the only reasonable strategy of our common security. Unless something has changed,\u201d he added on Elon Musk\u2019s social network, X, which the tech magnate uses daily to launch tirades against European democracies and their regulations.<\/p>\n

For Mujtaba Rahman, coordinator of the EU unit at the political risk analysis consultancy Eurasia, the U.S. administration\u2019s document confirms the deepest fears of many European capitals. Of course, they were aware of the shift in support for Ukraine, the rethinking of NATO, and the trade war, but above all, they feared the ideological clash, this analyst points out: \u201cThis strategy makes that policy explicit \u2014 MAGA\u2019s desire to work with allies in member states, to support far-right parties to help overthrow the government in power,\u201d he explains by phone.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a major strategic problem, because there is no good answer to how Europeans can address the administration\u2019s political leanings. It plays on the biggest fear that member states have had about the U.S. administration,\u201d he insists.<\/p>\n

For Rahman, managing this type of interference in domestic politics, especially when it comes from a supposed ally, and even more so if it\u2019s the United States, is much more difficult than interference from hostile countries. \u201cElectoral interference by Russia<\/a> has become the norm. It\u2019s predictable and, of course, undesirable, but when it comes from an ally, from a country that is supposed to be the guarantor of European security, it\u2019s a completely different and much more problematic situation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis strategy is definitive confirmation, if we needed it, that the United States considers liberal democracy and European integration to be adversaries,\u201d asserts Nathalie Tocci, director of the Institute for International Affairs and a professor at Johns Hopkins University, in a telephone interview. To be able to act, Europe must finally accept the reality of this divorce, which some are finding difficult to acknowledge, she maintains. \u201cTrump is not unpredictable, inconsistent, or incoherent. In fact, he is extremely coherent, consistent, and predictable when it comes to Europe: he wants to destroy us,\u201d Tocci states.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe must be extremely cautious in how we have addressed our weaknesses, for example, in defense, by increasing our dependence on the U.S. If they consider us adversaries, that\u2019s not the wisest thing to do right now,\u201d says the expert, who believes it is very difficult to reduce these vulnerabilities and dependencies in the short term, but that they must be addressed definitively. \u201cSometimes, as Europeans, we should take a step back and reflect: if there are countries much smaller, much weaker, much poorer than us, and with much greater capacity for action than Europe, perhaps our main problem is psychological rather than one of capabilities. And that is the level at which we should be working,\u201d Tocci concludes.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe U.S. National Security Strategy is clear evidence and provides ample arguments for why Europe needs to rapidly build its own defense independence and its own geopolitical independence,\u201d the European Commissioner for Defense, Andrius Kubilius, said on social media this Saturday. \u201cWe have the defense readiness strategy, a roadmap for our defense independence. We need the same for our geopolitical independence,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

In Brussels, more than one person on Friday \u2014 after reading the document and recovering from the shock of seeing in black and white what they already knew about the U.S. administration \u2014 was confident that this would be a wake-up call, leading those who still harbored hopes of a more manageable (or less hostile) White House to abandon them. And from there, those who make the decisions should move to action. Hans Kribbe, senior researcher and founder of the Geopolitical Institute in Brussels, summarized it this way: \u201cThis document should focus Europeans on the geopolitical question that really matters: do we want to be vassal states or a free continent pursuing its own interests?\u201d<\/p>\n

Sign up for our weekly newsletter<\/a> to get more English-language news coverage from EL PA\u00cdS USA Edition<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The era of harmony in transatlantic relations is over. For Donald Trump\u2019s United States, Europe \u2014 with its…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":621180,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5174],"tags":[1395,32,5898,2000,299,5187,13858,2596,660,36173,14736],"class_list":{"0":"post-621179","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-china","9":"tag-donald-trump","10":"tag-donald-tusk","11":"tag-eu","12":"tag-europe","13":"tag-european","14":"tag-j-d-vance","15":"tag-kaja-kallas","16":"tag-kremlin","17":"tag-maga","18":"tag-washington-d-c"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115687029735480702","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621179","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=621179"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621179\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/621180"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=621179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=621179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=621179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}