The former president’s return would cement a shift in the U.S. as a fact that can no longer be ignored.
This is the moment most of Europe’s leaders hoped they would never see. The date is November 7, 2024, two days after Donald Trump edged out Joe Biden in the U.S. presidential election, and already the once-and-future president has announced he will force Ukraine to strike a peace deal with Russia and cede territories the Kremlin has claimed as its own.
Gathered in Budapest for a meeting of the European Political Community, the continent’s leaders stare out over the majestic Danube River with just one thing on their mind: How should they react?
Can they double down in the face of Trump’s opposition and finally give Kyiv whatever it takes, as a group of leaders clustered around Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and French President Emmanuel Macron are arguing? Should they follow Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s lead and welcome Trump’s initiative to bring the conflict to an end? Wouldn’t it be better to work with Washington and help shape the deal, as the German and Italian delegations keep saying? And most importantly, how can the continent’s leaders keep the sharp turn in U.S. foreign policy from driving their countries apart?
Trump’s return to the White House is no sure thing, but the possibility is forcing Europe’s leaders to ponder scenarios like this, and grapple with the questions they entail. And as the U.S. election cycle cranks into a higher gear, officials across the continent are becoming increasingly candid about the implications of a second Trump presidency.
Vote for Biden no matter what, yankees, because otherwise everyone is fucked.
American here:
I really hope it doesn’t pan out that way, but to be honest, it’s hard not to see Europe as asleep at the switch here. Sure, everyone was surprised Trump won in 2016, but it became really obvious what the trajectory was the second he took office, and it seems that most European countries simply refused to account for that in a lot of different ways.
Now, I’m seeing European countries hoping really hard that Trump doesn’t win… but not much progress on collective geopolitical annd strategic efforts that aren’t already closely tied to the US. The EU’s collective military power compared to the US is a bit of a joke, as is the current state of their military supply and logistical lines (which directly underwrite and sustain military power). And the ESA’s current launch capability is comparatively minuscule compared to what NASA has done for decades.
Don’t get me wrong: I know Europe spends way more on their citizens, and that is awesome. But though it’s less direct, making sure the big stick actually exists when countries like Russia or China (or, conceivably in a Trumpian-US future… the US) stop paying attention to normal diplomacy, and start exercising diplomacy through other means.
More pointedly: yes, this is to a large degree the unfortunate return of the “might makes right” school of thought that many people - and pointedly, most European politicians - thought was mostly relegated to history.
The often repeated trope that the only country contributing to NATO is the US must stop. In fact, based upon percentage of GDP per capita, the US isn’t even #1! That award belongs to Poland. The US needs to strengthen its relationship with the EU for global stability, not weaken it. The EU’s contribution to NATO has increased dramatically and there are now 10 countries (mostly in Europe) who are at the stated and agreed upon goal of >2% of GDP spent on NATO. Trump will destroy our relationship with the EU and empower his multi-country pig sty of dictators. Only an idiot (or a dictator) would want that.
Sauce: https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/nato-spending-by-country
I feel like European leaders are panicking because they are realizing they have to actually lead on military and foreign policy rather than being given the binary choice to support the USA or do nothing. This isn’t something they’ve done in generations.
Nah, it’s because Trump is batshit insane. People like predictability - everyone sane wants stability (the best among us want stability that progresses to a better state of the world).
Can you say for certain that Trump wouldn’t just raid Fort Knox and then flee the county? He doesn’t seem to have any desire to actually be president outside of the legal immunity… we’re sort of in a Ceaser situation here.
Trump may have started it, but you also had issues with Ukrainian aid that forced Democrats to support the Republican Speaker of the House. The USA is starting to show cracks in wanting to stay involved in Europe. If that happens, the EU or other organization needs to be able to put together a plan. Right now, Europe can’t.
It’s not so much support the US or do nothing. The choice was support our interests, or trust that the US will sufficiently support them anyway. That trust is starting to break down, and Europe is learning just how complacent they’ve been.
If Europe can legitimately become less dependent on US support, that’s likely good for almost everyone in the long term. It’s going to be really tough for European countries in the short term though. If they fail, it’s amazing for the US, and really bad for Europe.
I don’t think it will be good for the USA if Europe fails.
There has been a multi-decade push to try to get Europe as whole to take more ownership of nearby security issues as the USA is no longer in the hyperpower position it used to be. People live pointing out that the EU has a higher GDP than the USA, but European countries still rely on the USA for basic force projection.
If Europe fails to reduce dependence on the US, they will functionally become a vassal state, which works well for the US.
Not really. Europe is rather lacking in natural resources, has a lackluster military, and has a population with high economic demands.
And we don’t want to. We are a post-war society. Europe has fought any war that can be fought. We are done with it. Fuck war.
And we got the Nobel peace prize for it.
Well now we have to prepare for war so we can have peace.
Europe is slow at the uptake, but the only power in the world that could theoretically beat us is the USA. I mean we’ll wake up (hopefully), wipe putin and the kremlin, sternly look at china while we go independent from them, and then we’ll probably go back to sleep once again somewhere in 2100.
They can still support the US, as all of them have done for the last 79 years and are doing still now.
It isn’t whether Europe can or can’t support the USA, it is that there is a very real possibility that the USA may not be there for Europe in the medium and long term.
A lot of European foreign policy has been reactionary to American foreign policy because it was cheaper and politically easier just to have Americans do it or at least make the strategic decisions. We are now getting to a point where American leadership isn’t assured.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine is a lot scarier for Europe if it can’t count on the USA to back NATO up.
I upvoted your comment, because I like the underlying idea that Europe has been “protected” so far because they could not sustain themselves, which is absolutely true. But the previous order collapsing isn’t necessarily bad.
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This is the best summary I could come up with:
The date is November 7, 2024, two days after Donald Trump edged out Joe Biden in the U.S. presidential election, and already the once-and-future president has announced he will force Ukraine to strike a peace deal with Russia and cede territories the Kremlin has claimed as its own.
Crucially, while it was possible to dismiss Trump’s first term as an aberration — a geopolitical squall that could be weathered — his return would cement the shift in American foreign policy as a fact that can no longer be ignored.
He would push Zelenskyy to cede Crimea and parts of the Donbas to convince Russian President Vladimir Putin to end the war, a plan first reported by the Washington Post.
“The fact that Congress felt the need to do that and President Biden was willing to sign it tells you that there are real concerns in Washington,” said Brad Bowman of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington-based think tank.
While the bloc has made some progress, agreeing to pool cash to buy weapons for Ukraine and ramp up arms manufacturing, actually delivering on these polices has been slow because of failures to pay up, disputes over how to raise the money and squabbles about where to spend it.
To make matters worse, even as they struggle to present a common front, Europe’s leaders would likely be coming under pressure from a host of Trump-led policies that might as well be designed to pull them apart.
The original article contains 2,357 words, the summary contains 246 words. Saved 90%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
I would say not much. That guy is 1 stroke away from not being the president anymore if he does become the president again.
It’s not Trump that you should really fear, he’s an idiot. It’s the people backing him to seize power that worry me.
Yeah there’s a long list of very healthy evil psycho Nazis behind him. That sucks. It will be a multigenerational battle just to keep our country from being nazi.
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He sure as hell tried
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Qasem_Soleimani
I distinctly remember when that went down. It was certainly jarring at the time, but after that nobody really fucked militarily with the US for the duration of Trump’s presidency. That I can recall. Russia didn’t move an inch, China wasn’t moving on Taiwan, the Middle East was relatively calm. Etc. One asshole had to die to get everyone else in line, that’s a great trade.
Now we’ve got massive conflicts on all those fronts because they perceive the US, POTUS as weak. Inept. And when the US falls from being the global hegemon, who will take its place? China? Russia? None of the alternatives look particularly good.
I will say, this proxy war with Russia just destroying all their resources for cheap has overall been a success. But it makes me sad that men’s lives are essentially being tossed into a meat grinder to make that happen. Lots of men dying on both sides of that conflict, lots of blood & treasure just thrown away. 😔 I hope that war in particular ends soon.
The thing is though it is not only now that the US was perceived as weak, it started during Trump’s time in power. The way Trump plainly kissed Putins feet in deep adoration, and utterly discredited his own forces any way he could, set the tone for the 12 years to follow… Trump being the loser he is only knows to blame others and the way he puts Biden in the spotlight as inept is not doing the US’ reputation any good.
Back then the international “politicians” could see that not only Trump’s 4 years were weak, but Bidens term and the next 4 years after that will be of the same mess with either the republicans destroying Democracy or throwing tantrums and blocking all legislation, regardless who wins the US finds itself in a gridlock of indecisiveness and infighting. (And it’s quite clear it’s all orchestrated by Putin himself … time and time again there’s evidence of strong Russian influence in the US politics and the republicans brush it aside and block investigations with a sheepish smile)
That makes it 12(!!) full years of the US rapidly losing status and power on the world stage.
All in all, Putin knew the US was so predictably incompetent that he could calculate to have 6 years at minimum to wreack as much havoc in Ukraine as he wishes… and we’re only in year 2 of his meat grinder.
yeah that was one thing that separated his term from basically all preceding Presidents in ~20+ years - he didnt get us mired in any wars.
