Trump is rocking Europe while the elites are drifting towards China and apologizing
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German Chancellor Friedrich Merz is planning a trip to China early this year, possibly in late February. So is British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, whose government recently committed to Beijing by lighting up the “big embassy,” thus ensuring that the visit will continue. French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife traveled to the Chinese capital in early December.
Europe is increasingly looking to China, to achieve tough trade and security goals. Unfortunately, there is, as Margaret Thatcher once said, “the smell of condescension” in the air. European leaders are absolutely determined to please the Chinese, no matter what Beijing does to dispossess Europeans and endanger their countries.
At the same time, the decline in US support across Europe has been, as Mark Leonard, director and founder of the European Council on Foreign Relations, points out, “very serious across the continent.”
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“The people of Europe,” wrote Leonard, “have already realized that Washington is more of an enemy than a friend.”
The enemy? Europeans are now focused on President Donald Trump’s demands to annex Greenland, a Danish territory. His threats to use force — “one way or another, we’re going to have Greenland,” he told reporters this month — and threats of tariffs are dividing Europe, but European leaders aren’t focusing on what’s important.
In fact, they just don’t get Trump.
As a first matter, they should criticize themselves for ignoring the real threat: Chinese and Russian militaries are openly threatening to dominate the Arctic with regular and aggressive air and sea patrols. China, in addition, is installing its infrastructure of satellite channels and fiber-optic cable in the region, which is part of its Polar Silk Road and Digital Silk Road initiatives.
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Trump was right when he noted that Greenland’s defenses now consist of “two dog sleds.”
NATO countries – France, Germany, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Britain, the Netherlands and Belgium – are now sending troops to the world’s largest island. Yes, this small deployment is intended to prevent Trump from entering, but he is making them take seriously the defense of Greenland, which has been neglected for a long time by Denmark and NATO.
By and large, the American presidency has been good for Europe, shaking it from its almost final slumber. Even after Russia’s two invasions of Ukraine, European leaders had trouble mobilizing themselves to do what was needed.
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As the Secretary-General of NATO Mark Rutte announced last month, Trump was ready for the Atlantic Alliance, calling the recent promise of the member countries to spend at least 5% of their economic results in the defense of the “great success of the foreign policy” of the American president. He also said that NATO is “stronger than ever” and that the American president is “good news” for both the defense group in general and NATO in particular.
Europeans are outraged by Trump’s tactics, but they did not move when previous American presidents, including Trump in his first term, used only soft words to spend on defense.
Therefore, Trump’s second term actions were necessary. And while Europe, in its crisis, had abandoned itself, Trump has very good intentions. His National Security Strategy, released last month, makes this key point: “We will need a strong Europe to help us compete effectively, and work together to prevent any adversary from dominating Europe.”
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Meanwhile, Europeans reacted emotionally. “The rule-based order is entering a powerful world, where it can be right and the West is divided from within,” Leonard wrote.
Leonard and the others are not paying attention. Trump believes that foreign powers should leave the Western Hemisphere – the “Donroe Doctrine,” as it is called – but he does not believe that Russia in Europe or China in Asia should have their spheres. Trump’s short and easy-to-read strategy document makes that clear.
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The National Security Strategy prioritizes regions, with Europe coming third behind the Western Hemisphere and the Indo-Pacific. Whatever one thinks of Trump’s alienation of the world – I don’t think the world, as China and Russia challenge America as a whole, can now disintegrate in that way – Europe is still seen as the power that controls its destiny.
Leonard, who is also the author of Surviving Chaos: Geopolitics When the Rules Fail, rightly points out that the rules-based order is dead or dying. Many in Europe, including Leonard, blame Trump, but here they are wrong. China and Russia have killed the rule-based order throughout this century, including, among many other things, the invasion of Ukraine.
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The Americans and Europeans, trying to accommodate Beijing and Moscow, refused to defend that order when they had the chance. Trump, by his example, takes the world as it is. He uses American power to protect America.
By doing so, he made the world safer and Europe.
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