Middle East, China, Russia, South America, Europe: The Trump earthquake has been felt in parliaments across the world. Every signature he scribbles on a piece of paper triggers a new tremor. Trump has the upper hand with some of them, as is the case with the European Union, whose official defiant stance towards the new president’s policies is reckless, if not ridiculous.
In October 2021, European Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen and Joe Biden staged a transatlantic reunion after strained relations with Trump. “The United States and the EU are entering a new era of transatlantic cooperation,” the then-president said. The two announced an agreement on steel and aluminum import tariffs as “a major step forward in bilateral relations” and in the “fight against climate change.”
Since then, the United States and the EU have been moving in the same direction: total fidelity to the Sustainable Development Goals, decarbonization and environmentalism, globalism, and the implementation of woke policies. So it came as no surprise that, three years after that agreement, Joe Biden quietly endorsed von der Leyen’s candidacy for re-election as head of the European Commission.
The arrival of Trump has put the brakes on this heartwarming friendship. The majority groups in the European Parliament, both the social democrats and the center-right, have made no secret of their sympathies towards the Democrats and their fear that the Republican would return to the White House. They have been preparing for that eventuality for months, intent on softening the blows and seeking out ways of agreement. Now that the moment has arrived and we have heard the positions of both sides, one thing is clear: they have not prepared well.
A few weeks ago in Paris, German Chancellor Scholz and French President Macron called for European unity in the face of Trump. Macron called for a “united, strong and sovereign Europe,” “which also knows how to assert its own interests and defend them with its values and with European instruments.” But ‘their’ Europe no longer exists. They speak as if Europe were an exception in the right-wing current that has swept first Argentina, and then the United States.
Moreover, none of the European leaders defending this stance is particularly popular at the moment. In Italy, Giorgia Meloni’s right wing is shining and nobody remembers the Left; in France, Marine Le Pen’s party won the last elections and only a last-minute alliance of progressives and centrists prevented the National Assembly from falling into her hands; in Germany, in AfD won regional elections, becoming the first right-wing party to do so since the Second World War; in Austria, the same thing happened—a historic right-wing triumph—and similar news came from Hungary and Belgium.
What do these heterogeneous right-wing parties have in common? The same thing they have in common with Trump: emphasis on national sovereignty, war on wokeism, curbing immigration, ending globalism, and shutting down climate policies.
Perhaps that is why Scholz’, Macron’s, and von der Leyen’s vain stance is so grotesque, trying to keep afloat a woke edifice that very few dare to defend in public. Instead of hedging their bets, they boast a united Europe that no longer exists. The fragmentation in the European Parliament is greater than ever, and Javier Milei’s speech denouncing European leaders for having sold the sovereignty of their peoples for well-dressed but essentially socialist and anti-freedom ideas still rings in the ears of very influential EU bodies such as the World Economic Forum WEF.
The paragon of the disconnection of European leaders from reality can be found in the President of Spain, the socialist Pedro Sánchez. Cornered by corruption, and with his international prestige at rock bottom, Sánchez took advantage of his speech at the WEF to criticize “the techno-billionaires who want to do away with democracy”, alluding to Elon Musk and the other tech gurus who attended Trump’s inauguration, pointing to them as part of a supposed “ultra-right-wing international” that dominates social networks. To cap it all, he offered to lead the European resistance to the advancing ‘far right’ in the U.S. How could a lame duck from a disgraced European nation stand up to a Trump who is stronger than ever?
With a heavy dose of irony, when a Spanish journalist asked Trump about Spain’s relations with the new administration, the president asked, “Are you a BRICS nation? Is Spain a BRICS?” alluding to the alternative to the G7 founded by Brazil, Russia, India, and China. Trump then threatened BRICS with a 100% tariff.
In Europe, media headlines suggested Trump had mistaken Spain for one of the BRICS nations, but it is more likely that he was consciously threatening the Spanish social-communist government, forcing it to decide whether it wants to be friends with the likes of Maduro or Lula da Silva, or with Western democracies. In fact, he then went on to remind that Spain’s defense spending is insufficient, showing that he knew exactly what he was talking about, even if that was all he had in mind about Spain.
The WEF is demonstrating that the free world is in full transformation, with two opposing poles: those who bet on cooperation while maintaining sovereignty, Western values, and freedom, and those who blindly follow the entelechy of woke globalism, the virus of cancellation, multiculturalism without law, or climate demands that are bankrupting European farmers with extreme regulations and then importing cheaper products from Africa or India without any environmental control.
Maybe someone should tell Macron, Scholz, von der Leyen, and of course Sanchez that they will disappear before Trump does and that their policies are not going to outlive them. Trump already knows this and is waiting for them to figure it out before he sits down to talk.
Europe Is on the Wrong Side of History
Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez (R) speaks with U.S. President Donald Trump during the NATO summit in Brussels, on July 11, 2018.
Photo: EMMANUEL DUNAND / AFP
Middle East, China, Russia, South America, Europe: The Trump earthquake has been felt in parliaments across the world. Every signature he scribbles on a piece of paper triggers a new tremor. Trump has the upper hand with some of them, as is the case with the European Union, whose official defiant stance towards the new president’s policies is reckless, if not ridiculous.
In October 2021, European Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen and Joe Biden staged a transatlantic reunion after strained relations with Trump. “The United States and the EU are entering a new era of transatlantic cooperation,” the then-president said. The two announced an agreement on steel and aluminum import tariffs as “a major step forward in bilateral relations” and in the “fight against climate change.”
Since then, the United States and the EU have been moving in the same direction: total fidelity to the Sustainable Development Goals, decarbonization and environmentalism, globalism, and the implementation of woke policies. So it came as no surprise that, three years after that agreement, Joe Biden quietly endorsed von der Leyen’s candidacy for re-election as head of the European Commission.
The arrival of Trump has put the brakes on this heartwarming friendship. The majority groups in the European Parliament, both the social democrats and the center-right, have made no secret of their sympathies towards the Democrats and their fear that the Republican would return to the White House. They have been preparing for that eventuality for months, intent on softening the blows and seeking out ways of agreement. Now that the moment has arrived and we have heard the positions of both sides, one thing is clear: they have not prepared well.
A few weeks ago in Paris, German Chancellor Scholz and French President Macron called for European unity in the face of Trump. Macron called for a “united, strong and sovereign Europe,” “which also knows how to assert its own interests and defend them with its values and with European instruments.” But ‘their’ Europe no longer exists. They speak as if Europe were an exception in the right-wing current that has swept first Argentina, and then the United States.
Moreover, none of the European leaders defending this stance is particularly popular at the moment. In Italy, Giorgia Meloni’s right wing is shining and nobody remembers the Left; in France, Marine Le Pen’s party won the last elections and only a last-minute alliance of progressives and centrists prevented the National Assembly from falling into her hands; in Germany, in AfD won regional elections, becoming the first right-wing party to do so since the Second World War; in Austria, the same thing happened—a historic right-wing triumph—and similar news came from Hungary and Belgium.
What do these heterogeneous right-wing parties have in common? The same thing they have in common with Trump: emphasis on national sovereignty, war on wokeism, curbing immigration, ending globalism, and shutting down climate policies.
Perhaps that is why Scholz’, Macron’s, and von der Leyen’s vain stance is so grotesque, trying to keep afloat a woke edifice that very few dare to defend in public. Instead of hedging their bets, they boast a united Europe that no longer exists. The fragmentation in the European Parliament is greater than ever, and Javier Milei’s speech denouncing European leaders for having sold the sovereignty of their peoples for well-dressed but essentially socialist and anti-freedom ideas still rings in the ears of very influential EU bodies such as the World Economic Forum WEF.
The paragon of the disconnection of European leaders from reality can be found in the President of Spain, the socialist Pedro Sánchez. Cornered by corruption, and with his international prestige at rock bottom, Sánchez took advantage of his speech at the WEF to criticize “the techno-billionaires who want to do away with democracy”, alluding to Elon Musk and the other tech gurus who attended Trump’s inauguration, pointing to them as part of a supposed “ultra-right-wing international” that dominates social networks. To cap it all, he offered to lead the European resistance to the advancing ‘far right’ in the U.S. How could a lame duck from a disgraced European nation stand up to a Trump who is stronger than ever?
With a heavy dose of irony, when a Spanish journalist asked Trump about Spain’s relations with the new administration, the president asked, “Are you a BRICS nation? Is Spain a BRICS?” alluding to the alternative to the G7 founded by Brazil, Russia, India, and China. Trump then threatened BRICS with a 100% tariff.
In Europe, media headlines suggested Trump had mistaken Spain for one of the BRICS nations, but it is more likely that he was consciously threatening the Spanish social-communist government, forcing it to decide whether it wants to be friends with the likes of Maduro or Lula da Silva, or with Western democracies. In fact, he then went on to remind that Spain’s defense spending is insufficient, showing that he knew exactly what he was talking about, even if that was all he had in mind about Spain.
The WEF is demonstrating that the free world is in full transformation, with two opposing poles: those who bet on cooperation while maintaining sovereignty, Western values, and freedom, and those who blindly follow the entelechy of woke globalism, the virus of cancellation, multiculturalism without law, or climate demands that are bankrupting European farmers with extreme regulations and then importing cheaper products from Africa or India without any environmental control.
Maybe someone should tell Macron, Scholz, von der Leyen, and of course Sanchez that they will disappear before Trump does and that their policies are not going to outlive them. Trump already knows this and is waiting for them to figure it out before he sits down to talk.
READ NEXT
The UK’s Shotgun Clampdown Is Indicative of Much More
Trump, Putin, Zelensky, and the Geopolitics of Resources
Erasmus: How Brussels ‘Deconstructs’ European Values