A Trump presidency could unite Europe - in obedience

Trump's far right allies in Europe can only dream of the kind of vote share the former US president will get on Tuesday. But if he wins, he could turn their rising wave into a tsunami.

This week in Brussels, The Parliament magazine hosted a presidential-style debate at The Merode between Democrats Abroad and Republicans Overseas. These types of events have been happening here in Brussels ahead of every US election for decades, since people here very closely follow US politics. And over the years, I’ve noticed that each election cycle it is harder and harder to find any American expat willing to represent Republicans Overseas. More and more, they have instead been Europeans with tenuous connections to the United States but plenty of links to this continent’s far right.

The person representing Republicans Overseas at the debate was the Frenchman Nicolas Conquer, who ran to be a French MP with Marine Le Pen’s far right National Rally party this year. The dual national lost with 40% of the vote, but vowed that RN is “here for the long term” and would be in power soon enough. In French-accented English on Tuesday night, Conquer outlined his passionate support for Trump while debating Democrats Abroad Belgium Chair Trip DuBard. Conquer is the spokesman for Republicans Overseas France (like many RO chapters in Europe, RO Belgium is no longer active).

That there are close ties between Trump and the far right parties of Le Pen, Geert Wilders, Viktor Orban, Giorgia Meloni, Jarosław Kaczyński and Santiago Abascal should surprise no one. Steve Bannon, Trump’s former chief strategist and recent Gulf Stream Blues subscriber for some reason (hi Steve), has been working to unite the right in Europe for a decade now. Bannon has been particularly close with Le Pen, and with his recent release from imprisonment for defying a congressional subpoena over the January 6th insurrection, he looks eager to continue his efforts in Europe.

The far right has been on the march here in Europe, coming in first in the recent Italian, Dutch and Austrian elections. But nowhere have they come anywhere close to how high the far right is polling in the United States. On Tuesday roughly half of the American electorate is expected to vote for Donald Trump, leader of a formerly center right party that has now been taken over by the far right. By contrast, Geert Wilders’ far right Freedom Party in the Netherlands came first in last year’s Dutch election but with just 23% of the vote. Austria’s far right Freedom Party came first in this year’s election with 29%. Giorgia Meloni became prime minister of Italy in 2022 after her party also got 29% of votes. The only country in the EU where a far-right party has won a majority in an election is Hungary (not coincidentally, Viktor Orban’s Fidesz is, like the Republicans, a formerly center right party that has turned far right).

As I’ve written before, Europe’s far right problem is nothing compared to America’s. But it is a wave that could easily turn into a tsunami if Donald Trump takes power in the United States for a second term, with the guardrails of his first removed. Gone will be the “adults in the room” who restrained him in his first term. Instead, the room will be filled with the Project 2025 far right fanatics who are already preparing how they will run the new Trump administration, which would almost certainly be far more extreme than the first.

Yesterday Politico published an article which quoted anonymous EU officials who said they believe Trump’s return could be the best thing that could happen to Europe. Not because they like Trump - they loathe him. But they said Trump’s reign would shock the EU into finally becoming a full union (with defence) that would no longer be dependent on the United States. While I’d love to believe this is true, it seems to me these people are ignoring a painful reality: if Trump 1 didn’t jolt Europeans into action, why would Trump 2?

Europeans have had eight years since the initial shock of Trump’s election to develop European sovereignty that would have insulated this continent from American chaos. They didn’t. Though there was plenty of talk in 2017, the natural instinct for inaction from Europe’s capitals won out. Macron’s call for a European defence union were mocked by the Atlanticist foreign policy establishment. Eastern Europeans refused to continence anything that might undermine NATO, as they buried their heads in the sand convincing themselves that America under Trump was an ally. The British remained lost in their delusions of a special relationship. Even after watching an insurrection and coup attempt in January 2021, Europeans lulled themselves into a false sense of security once Biden eventually prevailed and became president. The last four years have hardly seen any advancement in efforts to increase Europe’s strategic autonomy. Even if Russia’s invasion of Ukraine forced the EU to enter the military arena in an unprecedented way, it was done as a side partner to a US effort, not as an effort to build sovereignty. And this was with Emmanuel Macron at the peak of his power. With the French president now hobbled, the German chancellor an irrelevant afterthought and the British prime minster lost in delusional visions of Brexit sunny uplands, who would lead strategic autonomy efforts now? The most powerful leader in Europe at the moment is Trump ally Giorgia Meloni.

If past is prologue, it seems the much more likely outcome is that Europe follows the path of least resistance. Donald Trump taking power may unite Europe - but not in the way these EU officials would like. Rather than uniting to build a strong sovereign EU free from American control, it seems more likely that Europeans will do the opposite - electing far right Trump allies across the union to unite them in shared deference to the US president. Within two years, or maybe even sooner, we could have an AfD chancellorship in Berlin and a Le Pen presidency in Paris, accompanying the Meloni premiership in Italy. The power of the European far right is growing, but it is not yet overwhelming. Europe is a military dependency. If the far right takes power in the country on which Europe is dependent, it will be hard for defenders of the rule of law on this continent to resist the way the wind is blowing. The wind will be at the backs of Europe’s far right, and that is why they are so excited for the prospect of Trump’s return. And has Viktor Orban and others have shown, they are more inclined to be lapdogs of foreign authoritarians than they are toward actual European sovereignty. For the past eight years, they have only been interested in sucking up to Donald Trump.

Speaking after the event, Conquer told me that he expects the Trump presidency to usher in a period of close relations between the United States and France - but under a President Le Pen. History tells us that nationalists don’t have a good track record with cooperating internationally. But if Europe is going to unite in response to a Trump presidency, it unfortunately seems far more likely that they unite for Trump rather than against him.