Europe no longer occupies a respected place in the White House. The new American doctrine is clear: strength over alliances. Trump values power and his approach to international relations is based on realpolitik. The idea of an international order based on equality between sovereign states, born from the ashes of the destruction caused by the Second World War, appears to be dead and buried. And the conviction that the peace and prosperity of nations are achieved through free trade as well.
Trump’s vision of globalization is based, however, on a wrong assumption. The United States is not a victim. The reason why they have borne the bulk of the costs of defending Europe and maintaining order in the oceans is simple: they were the main beneficiaries of globalization and the way in which the global financial system is set up. This largesse was not due to the naivety or charity of American administrations over the last 80 years. Pax Americana is based on the dollar empire. The United States is able to spend more on Defense than all other world powers combined because it has the main global reserve currency and finances itself at very low costs. And the dollar occupies this position, despite the alternatives that have emerged in recent decades, because the United States continues to be a military superpower. It’s a fish with its tail in its mouth, as people say.
Trump turned the tables and imposed new rules of the game. It may or may not be successful; the future will tell. But it is time for the European Union to get used to this new reality and think about what the future will be like.
Having arrived here, it is important to bring some realism to the analyzes that are carried out, which are often focused more on questions of form than of substance. There are at least two myths that deserve to be dispelled.
The first describes Europe as a decadent continent, inhabited by pacifists incapable of fighting for their countries and convictions. It is not true, and the violent history of the last 1500 years proves it. Europeans have always been warmongers and, under the right circumstances, they will be so again. The exceptional period of peace since 1945 was essentially due to two factors: the need to recover from two major wars that left Europe in ruins; and the understanding with the United States, which assumed responsibility for security, leaving it up to Europeans to rebuild their countries and create new markets that would benefit companies on both sides of the Atlantic. The European Union itself only exists because the United States maintained peace, preventing the resurgence of old rivalries between France and Germany. From the Marshall Plan to the present day, the United States has benefited greatly from the stabilization and prosperity of Europe. In this tacit agreement, there was no naivety. Both parties benefited.
The second myth concerns European construction. Brexit and the rise of populist and nationalist movements in countries such as France and Germany pose a serious threat to the European project. There is, in fact, a not insignificant risk that the European Union will end up like the USSR, euthanized from within, overnight, after long years of death. However, the European Union has something that the USSR did not have: accumulated capital that will be more than enough to finance its remilitarization and reindustrialization. In this sense, the apparent weakness of European leaders, who have sought to stroke Trump’s ego, sometimes making themselves look ridiculous, may be nothing more than a Byzantine maneuver to gain time.
For our sake, let us hope that this is the case and that there is a true strategy to relaunch Europe as a full-fledged economic and geopolitical bloc, capable of defending its interests and values on a global level. Europe is not weak by nature, but by political choice. And if it wants to survive as a bloc, it will have to assume its historical and strategic responsibility. The time for illusions is over.