Trump's new world order: how should Europe respond?
In view of the increasingly obvious turnaround in US foreign policy under President Trump, old certainties seem to be disappearing and new strategies are needed. In the EU, but elsewhere too, new coalitions and plans of action are emerging. Europe's media debate if and how Europe can reposition itself in today's world.
Forge new alliances
There are lots of things Europe to get stronger, says Berlingske:
“The EU should intensify negotiations on free trade agreements with India, Australia and Indonesia, among others, and - as former Nato Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen recently suggested - endeavour to build an axis of countries that 'counteract the pressure from Russia, China and possibly also the US on smaller countries'. ... We should not push the US away, but at the same time we should move closer together in Europe and forge new alliances that serve our goal of ensuring an international legal order.”
This could backfire on the US
The actions of the US leadership could trigger processes that ultimately harm the country's interests, according to Spotmedia:
“Nobody knows whether Nato will survive the crisis unleashed by Donald Trump. ... Moreover, a new kind of military alliance will certainly form - between the European states, Canada, the UK and probably Australia and New Zealand, a formal or informal alliance. ... Many of the strategies launched by Trump and Vance in the White House are leading to developments that go in unexpected directions rather than serving those who orchestrated them. It is often the case that such a brutal approach backfires on those who initiated it, landing them in a new situation they hadn't thought about even for a moment.”
Use Europe's leverage with Moscow
The Financial Times explains how Europe can effectively support Ukraine on its own:
“The first step should be to accelerate European military support and funding as rapidly as possible, to strengthen Ukraine's negotiating hand and ability to deter any future Russian aggression. … European capitals have leverage with Moscow via hefty sanctions that Vladimir Putin wants to see lifted. The bulk of Russia's 300 billion [US dollars in] frozen foreign exchange reserves are held in Europe, too. Though leaders have shied away from seizing the capital, the arguments are shifting in favour of doing so to help fund Ukraine's defence.”
Don't opt for unrealistic militarisation
It would be a mistake for Europe to choose rapid rearmament, political scientist Ignacio Sánchez-Cuenca writes in El País:
“No matter how much we dislike Trump, the fact is that an opportunity is opening up to finally stop the conflict in Ukraine once and for all. In my view, it would be a big mistake for the EU to embark on an unrealistic militarisation, exploiting the current unprecedented global situation to try to build up a military superpower in the face of the current US administration. Instead, the goal should be to convince the US that the EU is needed in the negotiations, to apply as much pressure as possible to ensure that the peace is fair, and to support the reconstruction of Ukraine in any way it can.”
EU rendering itself obsolete
Geopolitics expert Lucio Caracciolo rakes the EU over the coals in La Repubblica:
“The European Union is brain dead. When put to the test, it proved incapable of resolving the conflict. In the three years since the war in Ukraine began it has been unable to produce so much as a shred of a proposal to end it. Born in the shadow of Nato, in peace and for peace, as the economic arm of the Euro-Atlantic system promoted by the United States, it is now proving itself obsolete. Just like Nato, whose demise Macron predicted with remarkable foresight in 2019, during Trump's first term in office.”