Europe Is Woefully Unprepared for Trump II

The decline of past empires always began with a loss of the ability to adapt to changing environments. The American empire postponed its adjustment to the post-1989 environment until the tenure of the 45th president. It was Donald Trump who drew conclusions from the transformations in the international order after 1989.

First, a serious rival emerged in Asia, whose rise has led to significant consequences at home. Second, if the fate of the world is at stake in Asia—specifically whether America will retain its leading position—it follows that Europe cannot continue to absorb so many resources and so much attention. This shift caused bouts of panic across the Atlantic. There is a growing realization that it is the EU that has irreversibly lost its ability to adapt to the changes shaping its environment. 

Some believe Trump aims to pressure Europe into increasing its defense spending through threats. Others speculate he may choose a “dormant NATO” strategy. Finally, there is the possibility of abandoning the Atlantic alliance altogether.

The “dormant NATO” strategy demonstrates sound geopolitical logic, and the similarities between views expressed by this publication’s Sumantra Maitra and statements from Vice President J.D. Vance lend additional plausibility to this scenario. In essence, America’s priority is Asia, and further expansion of the alliance must be halted, with the burden shared more equitably. The most important conclusion from European perspective is this: The American presence has been the primary cause for military atrophy on the Old Continent.

According to Maitra, the progenitor of the dormant NATO concept, the only guarantee of a united Europe is the United States. Washington has imposed an unnatural security architecture on the continent. Maitra does not suggest abandoning Europe entirely but advocates reducing the U.S. role to that of an offshore balancer.

Vance emphasized during the Munich Security Conference that there is little justification for the U.S. allocating such large sums to aid Ukraine, rightly questioning whether Europeans remain allies or have merely become clients. He holds the conviction that once the U.S. shifts its stance and compels European countries to become more self-reliant, they will assume the burden of defending their own continent.

Yet the notion that Europe can adapt may, in the end, prove to be an American fantasy.

The French philosopher and left-wing Member of the European Parliament Raphaël Glucksmann voiced European anxiety on social media, stating on X, “From now on, we will find ourselves alone in Europe.” One cause of this sentiment could be the growing realization that the continent’s defense ambitions are a fiasco, hobbled by the inability to muster the necessary political resolve.

A telling example is the vast program of military modernization announced by Olaf Scholz after the invasion on Ukraine. One German think tank has noted that, after two years, it is clear the Zeitenwende has failed. The think tank also recommends abandoning the term altogether, as it has become discredited. Moreover, it highlights that Berlin may soon be unable to sustain 2 percent defense spending once the special fund is depleted in 2027.

European defense efforts are failing in the area of harmonizing military purchases. Most notably, dependence on U.S. arms manufacturers has only grown in recent years. According to SIPRI, between 2019 and 2023, American arms accounted for 55 percent of European materiel imports, up from 35 percent in the period between 2014 and 2018. As France’s former Army Minister Florence Parly bitterly observed, NATO seems to have no Article V, but rather an Article F-35. The fighter jet has become the most frequently purchased combat aircraft by European countries, with contracts signed by Germany, Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, Greece, Italy, Norway, Poland, the Czech Republic, the UK, and others.

The money currently spent by European countries is barely sufficient to maintain their existing military capabilities, let alone boost them. European companies remain skeptical about how long the trend of increased defense spending will persist and are hesitant to invest in expanding their capacities. Joint projects between Germany and France to develop new aircraft or next-generation tanks are mired in disputes and face constant delays. The fragmentation of the defense industrial base persists, along with the asymmetry of geopolitical interests.

In addition to dismantling the illusion of a cohesive European defense, Trump 47 is expected to push the countries of the Old Continent toward a more protectionist attitude. Will they be able to present a united front against Trump’s “New American System”? Experts caution that the tariffs proposed by the president-elect are likely to hit Germany the hardest. Germany’s export-driven growth model finds itself in the crossfire: Not only must it contend with Trump’s neomercantilism, but it also faces challenges from China’s industrial policy. Christine Lagarde, the head of the European Central Bank, has already expressed the EU’s readiness to negotiate, stating, “We could offer to buy certain things from the United States and signal that we are prepared to sit at the table and see how we can work together.”

It seems EU’s elites only response is to repeat the same banalities about “strategic autonomy” that President Emmanuel Macron has been promoting since Trump’s first victory. European elites have made two critical mistakes: They allowed themselves to believe that Trump’s first victory was a mere fluke, and they failed to prepare for the possibility of his comeback.

Platitudes about “strategic autonomy” were merely a publicity angle during Ursula von der Leyen’s previous term as president of the European Commission. Truly achieving it would have required a large-scale industrial policy and meeting one of two conditions: either persuading Germany to fund it or cutting subsidies for French agriculture. The first option is unlikely to work—not because Paris couldn’t stomach even more imposing German hegemony, but because Berlin has no intention of paying for it. The second option is equally unfeasible, as it would amount to the controlled demolition of the French agricultural sector, which, as the late historian Tony Judt quipped, has sometimes seemed like the EU’s primary raison d’être.

Nevertheless, posturing aside, the EU oligarchy does have its own worldview, distinct from the concept of strategic autonomy. This ideology is encapsulated in Anu Bradford’s book The Brussels Effect. The titular “effect” refers to the EU’s status as such a vast market that its confrontational regulatory demands are effectively exported worldwide. This is intended to compensate for the EU’s weaknesses in other areas. Perhaps Brussels cannot spark innovation, defeat Islamic terrorism, stem the rise of populism, or transform the EU into a military power, but it can aspire to dictate the world’s regulatory architecture. 

The central premise of the regulatory empire concept is that Europe is an indispensable market. But the EU is no longer as indispensable as it once was.

For instance, Apple’s financial statements categorize “Europe” to include not only the EU but also the UK, Norway, Switzerland, Russia, Turkey, and the entire Middle East. A closer examination reveals that EU member countries account for only 7 percent of Apple’s revenue. Moreover, companies like META and Apple have refrained from launching some of their latest AI-based services in the EU, deeming the regulations overly burdensome. This suggests that market bifurcation in cutting-edge technologies like AI could become a reality. 

Just as cars in South America tend to be slower, less safe, and less fuel-efficient than the models sold in the EU or the U.S., Europe may now find itself stuck with older AI models. If AI proves to be the engine of growth that many predict—a possibility that cannot be dismissed—the Old Continent risks becoming an economic backwater. The dream of strategic autonomy would drift even further out of reach.

The reality of the EU, however, is neither strategic autonomy nor a regulatory superpower. As the German-American technologist John Loeber observes, Europe, on a macro scale, is primarily a consumer. Almost everything of significant value is imported from either the U.S. or China.

In contrast, the U.S. is a producer on a macro scale, continuing to drive progress in areas like scientific research, technology, and space exploration. The defining feature of the EU, according to Loeber, is “providerism”: “the ability to ignore political-economic realities because everything is provided for you, with the underlying mechanics and costs abstracted away.”

One of the facets of providerism is, of course, the outsourcing of security to the U.S. Less discussed, however, is the outsourcing of the European Green Deal to China—and, more recently, to the U.S. through the purchase of LNG. Brussels’ flagship project is heavily dependent on PRC, as Beijing dominates the supply chains for clean technologies: “China is responsible for the production of about 90 per cent of the world’s rare earth elements, at least 80 per cent of all the stages of making solar panels and 60 per cent of wind turbines and electric-car batteries. In some of the materials used in batteries and more niche products, China’s market share is close to 100 per cent.”

How is this providerism faring? At the Lisbon Summit in March 2000, the European Council and heads of state set highly ambitious goals, including surpassing the American economy by 2010. In hindsight, it was an exercise in self-delusion.

Over the past 15 years, the eurozone economy has expanded by approximately 6 percent in dollar terms, compared to 82 percent growth for the U.S. As a result, the average EU country now has a lower per capita income than every U.S. state except Idaho and Mississippi.

A couple of years ago, the European Commission published a report titled Global Europe 2050, which included a scenario called “Europe where nobody cares.” It’s difficult not to imagine the EU’s future settling somewhere between a stagnant “Europe where nobody cares” and Europe of national egoisms.

As France’s Prime Minister Michel Barnier noted, there will be a strong temptation for countries to prioritize bilateralism and focus solely on their own interests. The likelihood of a Hobbesian “everyone for himself” logic prevailing in Europe, with states pursuing pragmatic deals with great powers, does not seem remote.

The economist Reuven Brenner observed that when a country’s position declines relative to others, it often creates an incentive to bet on new ideas. This risk-taking fiber, however, has been weakened on the Old Continent by two factors: the already mentioned growing burden of EU regulation and the liberal gerontocracy.

Never before has Europe been so old, with the elderly wielding unprecedented influence. Many European states have become fictions through which one generation lives at the expense of the young. The weight of the pension systems will become overwhelming, while the assets accumulated by the old only continue to increase in value, making it harder and harder to buy a home and start a family. Consider one example: On average, between 2015 and 2023 house prices rose by 50 percent in Europe. 

The pensioners make up the largest voting bloc, which helps explain, for instance, the limited investment in new infrastructure. Long-term projects often conflict with political parties’ focus on short-term priorities, aimed at satisfying the largest segment of the electorate—the older generation—who have less interest in the distant future.

Gerontocracy and regulatory impulses have permanently reduced the risk tolerance Europeans so desperately need today. Will the EU be capable of a correction of its trajectory? Can the leopard change its spots? Europeans know how to be afraid together, but they have never learned to work well with each other. However, the greatest danger is not that Europe will stand alone, but that it will become irrelevant. With Trump 47 we will find out whether hope for more than occasional glimmers of lucidity is justified.