Old
World’s moment of Trump reckoning
The
Donald’s ascendance calls into question durability of post-war
order in Europe.
By NICHOLAS VINOCUR
3/10/16, 5:30 AM CET
PARIS — After a
long period of being in denial about the strange events across the
pond, many European politicians and diplomats are finally confronting
the mind-boggling prospect that they could soon be dealing with an
American president even worse, as they see it, than George W. Bush.
And the very real fear is that if Donald Trump does get elected, the
West as we know it may not survive.
No one summed up
this fear better than Germany’s weekly Spiegel magazine, which put
a picture of Trump’s face on its cover surrounded by flames, above
a one-word headline — “Madness.”
Bush badly damaged
the Western alliance with the 2003 invasion of Iraq, but even when
transatlantic relations seemed to go into deep freeze afterward,
Washington maintained all ties to Europe, and never questioned its
role as chief defender of the West. Trump, on the other hand, appears
to be arguing that he doesn’t much care for the Western alliance
that has been in place since World War II. He says that the rest of
the West should stand up for itself — tradition be damned. And he
makes no secret of his disdain for Europe, calling Brussels a
“hellhole”; Germany and Sweden “disasters”; and German
Chancellor Angela Merkel’s open-door migration policy “insane.”
A Trump presidency
would thus make Bush’s term in office look like “a period of
intense cooperation,” said Philippe Lamberts, a Green party member
of the European Parliament.
Under the Obama
presidency, Europeans got a first taste of what a U.S. retreat from
its traditional role might resemble. The president’s decision in
2013 not to strike the Syrian government, despite its crossing of a
“red line” by using chemical weapons, rattled European capitals
that expected an American “go” to carry out their own strikes.
America’s
disengagement and now the Trump ascendance has come at one of the
most difficult periods in Europe’s post-war history. Britain is
readying to vote in three months on its membership in the EU, which
could fracture (and pessimists fear unravel) the Union. The eurozone
economy is weak, with another Greek debt crisis lurking over the
horizon. Civil wars in Syria and Libya push hundreds of thousands of
migrants toward Europe, and heighten fears about domestic terrorism
of the kind that hit Paris in November. It is a place low on
self-confidence or strong leadership.
‘Opportunistic,
amoral, unreliable’
The election in
America adds an extra ingredient of uncertainty to this brew —
especially in the person of Donald J. Trump, who promises to pursue
disengagement even further than Obama and “let Russia fight ISIS”
in Syria. He has repeatedly expressed admiration for Russian
President Vladimir Putin. As for the simmering conflict between
Europe and Russia over Ukraine, Trump said it was “Europe’s
problem much more than ours” and called upon Germany, a “very
rich, very powerful nation” to shoulder more responsibility — or
make an explicit appeal for U.S. help.
And where Obama has
shown calculated indifference toward Europe, Trump has demonstrated
willful ignorance and disdain for the workings of the EU (conflating
Sweden and Brussels as “countries”), while heaping praise on
Putin. Most worryingly, his calls to renegotiate Washington’s trade
deals with all of its commercial partners point to a worldview in
which all have the same rank, regardless of history. The carefully
nurtured relationships that form the heart of NATO and the
Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development would fade,
leaving Putin more freedom than ever.
At the heart of
Trumpism is the notion that the United States should defend its
interests more aggressively by striking better “deals” with
foreign powers — a doctrine often described as “America First.”
“We need to
address the flaws in our liberal order, but not undermine, ridicule
or distort it,” said Ana Palacio, former Spanish foreign minister
under the center-right government of José Maria Aznar. “The
opportunism, unreliability and amorality that we have seen during the
(Trump) campaign would be damaging for the world in general and hurt
Europe in particular.”
Some European
diplomats noted optimistically that Trump would be hemmed in by
Congress and unable to carry out his most inflammatory proposals.
“Can he choose Putin over his traditional allies? Can he close
doors to China? Can he say to the Middle East, it’s no longer my
role to intervene?” asked Dominque Moïsi, a senior adviser at the
French Institute for International Relations. “Once you are in
power, your margin of maneuver is very slim, and even Donald Trump
would have to be realistic.… He would not be able to do anything so
drastically different, because there are hard facts that will not
change.”
But Trump skeptics
also acknowledged that a U.S. president has far greater latitude on
the foreign policy front than he does at home. And Europeans know
that, unlike in other areas where he has wavered, Trump’s foreign
policy outlook has shown remarkable continuity. In 2000, he warned
that he wanted to “pull back from Europe” to save his country
millions of dollars on stationing NATO troops. Sixteen years later,
he’s saying very similar things.
Moreover, Trump does
not appear to be listening well to advice from respected foreign
policy experts in the United States. Asked at the last Republican
debate whom he listened to, the first name out of Trump’s mouth was
Richard Haass, a realist thinker who heads the Council on Foreign
Relations and is considered a moderate Republican. Haass’ spokesman
later said he had spoken to Trump only once, back in August.
At the heart of
Trumpism is the notion that the United States should defend its
interests more aggressively by striking better “deals” with
foreign powers — a doctrine often described as “America First.”
While political scientists disagree over which former U.S. president
this view borrows from the most (some say Teddy Roosevelt, others
Andrew Jackson), most assert that Trump wants to wind back the clock
to a time before the U.S. took on its burdensome role as global
policeman.
Thus, within weeks
of his election, critics said, a determined President Trump could
take decisions that would start to unravel the terms of a
U.S.-insured global order that prevailed in the Cold War. If he
carries out such a reversal of U.S. policy, there would be little
left for Europe and the U.S. to talk about except perhaps some form
of divorce. “It would be difficult for someone like Merkel to even
consider this man becoming president of the United States,” said
Moïsi. “How would she respond to him? There is nothing in the
diplomatic rulebook for dealing with Donald Trump.”
If the United States
stopped contributing disproportionately to NATO, as Trump suggested
it would, cash-strapped EU governments, including Germany, would have
to pay more. They might also be on the hook for indirect benefits of
U.S. military spending, like the protection of commercial sea routes.
And for that, they
say, Europe is completely unprepared. “There is no evidence of the
political spine in Europe that is required to face this reality,”
said Nicholas Dungan, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council.
“France and Germany are stalled, there will be no movement, and
basically there will be no defender of the values everyone fought for
in World War I and II.”
If the U.S. no
longer treats Europe as a special case, a huge burden of leadership
falls on Paris, Berlin and (possibly) London to push back against
Putin — one that few consider the Continent capable of taking on
alone. “Neither psychologically nor logistically is Europe ready
for this,” said Dungan, also a professor at Sciences Po University.
* * *
These worries are
still mostly sub-rosa, of course. Among politicians, at least, the
public opposition has been muted. With a few notable exceptions —
British Prime Minister David Cameron; Pope Francis; the heads of
several far-left parties — European leaders and party chiefs have
stopped short of attacking Trump directly.
And most don’t
engage at all. When Merkel was questioned about Trump last Sunday in
the Bild am Sonntag weekly, she twice sidestepped a chance to answer
him.
“Q: Is there
something you appreciate about the Republican candidate Donald Trump?
Merkel: I don’t
know him personally.
Q: He has attacked
you personally.
Donald Trump
supporters cheer on the Republican presidential candidate
French President
François Hollande has never mentioned Trump’s name in public (the
reverse is not true). The European Union’s two most senior figures
— Jean-Claude Juncker, the European Commission President, and
Donald Tusk, the European Council President — both declined to
answer questions about him.
On the part of
high-level executives, that sort of discretion is partly
understandable. Trump is not a president or even a nominee, so he can
be ignored.
But even
media-hungry party chiefs and regular pols in Europe treat The Donald
with caution.
“Trump would force
Europeans to pull themselves together and avoid new errors, instead
of continuing to free-ride as the Germans have done” — Pierre
Lellouche
Martin Schulz,
center-left president of the European Parliament, will have nothing
to say about Trump until after the Republican primary, according to a
spokesman; while Manfred Weber, head of the center-right European
People’s Party, said that although Trump might make a “difficult
partner” for Europe, the EPP would show up to the Republican
convention as every year.
Gianni Pittella, the
leader of the Socialist group in Parliament, laughed off the idea of
a President Trump. And former Belgian leader Guy Verhofstadt, who is
famous for his outspokenness, said he would not react “to Mr.
Trump’s provocations.” The heads of foreign affairs committees in
the French and German parliaments declined to comment on Trump.
Even on the European
far right, where cheerleading of a populist and nationalist candidate
might be expected, the response is circumspect. With the exception of
French firebrand Jean-Marie Le Pen, endorsed Trump on Twitter, no
major figure has come out in support of him, or violently against.
Le Pen’s daugher
Marine, head of the National Front party, dodged several questions
about Trump last year on TV, while Nigel Farage, head of Britain’s
anti-EU UKIP party, has dismissed him as purely the business of
American voters.
“Nothing to say,”
a Farage spokesman deadpanned when asked about Trump.
Part of the
cold-shoulder act has to do with wishful thinking, said Dungan.
Thanks to American
friends and pundits who promised that Trump had no chance of winning
the Republican nomination, let alone the general election, European
elites are only just emerging from denial about his election chances.
After Trump’s
breakout in this month’s Super Tuesday primaries, the script
changed, and Trump-denial gave way to Trump-terror.
Even assuming that
an election victory would dial down Trump’s inflammatory rhetoric,
he would still embrace the “America First” foreign policy outlook
that dictates far less involvement for the U.S. in overseas ventures.
The preview came with Obama. French diplomats still refer to Obama’s
last-minute decision not to bomb the Syrian government over chemical
weapons as a moment of reckoning, as France had been ready to strike
on Washington’s green light.
Yet Washington still
plays a heavy role in ensuring Europe’s defense, having delivered
5,000 tons of ammunition to Germany last month as part of a NATO
security ramp-up.
In Trump’s world,
such shipments may never come.
Europe on its own
Some thinkers still
argue that given the huge weight of inertia behind the United States’
global role, a President Trump would conduct foreign policy much the
way his predecessors did. Others, like former French trade minister
and center-right deputy Pierre Lellouche, argue that further
disengagement by the U.S. might even be a good thing for Europe.
“Given the
catastrophic errors made by the United States since the end of the
Cold War, I wonder if (a withdrawal) isn’t a good idea. It would
force Europeans to pull themselves together and avoid new errors,
instead of continuing to freeride as the Germans have done,” he
said. Little in recent European history suggests the Continent is
ready or able to look after its own security.
For Camille Grand,
head of France’s Foundation for Strategic Research, Europe had
better get used to a fast-changing world and adjust itself, no matter
who wins the White House. Trump, he said, is moving with the foreign
policy zeitgeist in the United States, not against it.
“I think it’s
indispensable for the Europeans to prepare for what this hypothesis
(of Trump’s election) would mean, and to take it seriously,” he
said. “Even if he’s not elected, his campaign is going to pull
Republicans in his direction on a range of subjects, and there will
be the same effect on Hillary Clinton if she wins.”
Not everyone shares
this perspective. In fact, many Europeans consider that Trump’s vow
to upend the global order and let allies fend for themselves is more
bluster than hard promise. If Trump were elected, their thinking
goes, he would be so overwhelmed by day-to-day duties, that he would
behave more or less the same way as any president who came before
him.
But that could just
be more wishful thinking.
Tara Palmeri
contributed reporting to this article.
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