Donald Trump says he wants a Europe that is more capable of defending itself. But the nationalist-populist movements he is championing there will not advance this agenda and may put Europe at odds with the United States over China.
Earlier this month, the nationalist-populist Alternative for Germany party came just a few seats short of an outright majority in a regional parliament, its best-ever result. This Sunday, Germans will vote in two more regional elections. The ruling Christian Democrats are behind in both races, and the AfD is expected to do well in one. On Wednesday, Chancellor Friedrich Merz canceled his visit to the United Nations General Assembly next week, sparking speculation that he could soon be forced to resign.
U.S. officials are ebullient. Trump greeted the AfD’s recent electoral victory with a triumphant message on Truth Social that finished with “MGGA” (Make Germany Great Again). Richard Grenell, Trump’s former ambassador to Germany and now a presidential envoy, called the result “a huge win and a new day in Germany.”
The Trump administration has consistently embraced Europe’s nationalist-populist parties as ideological partners, and even launched a State Department fund to support MAGA-aligned European groups. It surely sees the AfD’s ascendance as a sign that politics are moving in its direction. But that is true only if Trump’s real goal is a fragmented Europe that accommodates Russian and Chinese power and is unable to punch its weight. Such an outcome would be catastrophic for U.S. interests.
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Some people in the administration insist that the idea is not to weaken Europe but to shift the burden for its conventional defense to the Europeans themselves. Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, for example, reject claims that the administration is soft on Russia and say that they are calling instead for greater European self-sufficiency. Colby advocates for what he calls NATO 3.0, in which Europeans would take on the primary responsibility for their conventional defense.
But the nationalist populists do not share this view. The AfD has called for an end to all arms deliveries to Ukraine and a lifting of all sanctions on Russia. Its co-leaders, Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla, boycotted Volodymyr Zelensky’s speech to the Bundestag in 2024, dismissing the Ukrainian president as a “war and beggar president.”
In France, Marine Le Pen, the parliamentary leader of the nationalist-populist party National Rally and the front-runner for next spring’s presidential election, has promised to take France out of NATO’s integrated military command (France would remain a member of the alliance). Such a withdrawal would hardly help the Trump administration shift the burden of NATO’s defense to Europe.
The Trump administration’s affinity for Europe’s nationalist-populist right seems to be almost entirely cultural and civilizational, and based on the notion that Europe’s populists are fighting the same culture wars—including against immigration—as their counterparts in the United States. J. D. Vance explicitly praised then–Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán as an ally in defense of Western civilization at an election rally in Budapest on the eve of the Hungarian elections. And the Trump team seems to see the European populist right’s enemies—the European Union and national political establishments—as versions of its own domestic foes. This commonality appears to take precedence over foreign-policy concerns.
Trump officials have blasted centrist European governments for being too soft on Beijing but have said nothing about the populist right’s position on China. Some of these parties—particularly the AfD and Fidesz, in Hungary—favor much closer ties to the American adversary. The AfD’s Weidel lived in China for six years, speaks Mandarin, and wrote her doctoral dissertation about China’s pension system. Chrupalla, her co-leader, accused the German government of waging “economic war” against China for proposing a tougher trade policy toward Beijing. They have both called for warmer relations with China. Orbán, who was defeated in the Hungarian elections earlier this year, blocked the EU from criticizing Beijing, initiated an “all-weather comprehensive strategic partnership” with China, and welcomed Chinese investment in Hungarian infrastructure.
These largely transactional attitudes toward China and Russia may reflect a broader worldview among the nationalist populists, who praise Trump but are deeply skeptical of American power. In an analysis for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Jeremy Cliffe argued that the AfD supports a multipolar world order and believes that great powers, such as China and Russia, should possess spheres of influence—a perspective that Trump seems sympathetic toward. The AfD, Cliffe wrote, “may regard Trump as a civilizational ally, but its senior figures have long described the United States as a raumfremd in Europe, a hard to translate German word that means something like ‘territorially alien.’”
[Read: Europe’s far right is turning on Trump]
If parties with these views take power, they could reduce American influence in Europe while making common European action on Russia and China much more difficult. They will also make Eastern Europeans nervous about German rearmament. In 2011, Radek Sikorski, Poland’s foreign minister, said, “I fear German power less than German inaction.” He recently revisited that remark, telling the German newspaper Handelsblatt, “We want Germany, under democratic leadership and as the largest economy in Europe, to play a strong role in securing our common security. But we remember all too well where a rearmed Germany can lead in the hands of a far-right, pro-Russian party—and that is exactly what the AfD represents.”
Senior Trump-administration officials say they are building a Europe that will carry its own weight. Maybe they are so beguiled by the nationalist populists’ domestic agenda that they have not yet realized it will come at the expense of NATO 3.0. Or maybe Trump doesn’t care about Europe’s defense, doesn’t see it as a U.S. interest, and doesn’t believe that Europe has any contribution to make to America’s security.
Trump and Vance seem to be laying the foundation for a more divided Europe that is incapable of deterring Russia, ever more dependent on China, and at odds with itself. If the administration continues on this path, it may get the European culture war it wants, but the United States will lose its ally.
The post Trump Is Betting on the Wrong Europe appeared first on The Atlantic.
