Months of Donald Trump‘s insults, mockery and military aggression appear to have finally pushed Europe to its limits, with leaders now openly moving against the US President.
Since the US and Israel began their war against Iran, European countries have lambasted the President’s “war of choice” and refused to assist him, while France, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, and Austria have all closed or partially closed their airspace to American military aircraft.
On Thursday the French President, Emmanuel Macron, usually tactful in dealing with the irascible Trump, lashed out after the American’s derogatory remarks about his relationship with his wife, Brigitte.
At a private lunch event on Wednesday, Trump, imitating a French accent, said: “I call up France, Macron – whose wife treats him extremely badly. Still recovering from the right to the jaw.”
Trump’s comments referred to a video from last May showing Brigitte appearing to shove her husband.
Macron said Trump’s mocking remarks were “neither elegant nor up to standard” and that “they don’t deserve a response”. He added: “You want to be serious, you don’t say every day the opposite of what you said the day before.”
The Macrons during a visit to Seoul, South Korea this week (Photo: Kim Hong-Ji/ Reuters)He went on to criticise Trump’s approach to the war: “This is not a show. We are talking about war and peace and the lives of men and women.” He also suggested Trump ought to reduce his daily commentary on its progress. “And maybe you shouldn’t be speaking every day. You should just let things quieten down,” he said.
Macron’s stand came after the Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, called on the global community not to play “Russian roulette with the destiny of millions” by engaging in the war. He has called the war a “violation of international law” and an “unjustified and dangerous military intervention”.
Sánchez was the first European nation to publicly refuse to grant the US access to its airbases. In response, the US threatened to cut off trade to Spain.
Europe is moving against Trump – and there’s no going back
Europe’s attitude to Trump’s US is unlikely to return to what it was, with officials no longer speaking about it as an ally, experts say. Sébastien Maillard, Associate Fellow at Chatham House: “I hear language I used to hear about China being used towards the US. People saying Europe needs to ‘de-risk’, calling them a ‘systemic rival’. That’s official diplomatic language used about China.”
He added: “European leaders feel more and more comfortable moving against Trump because there’s no moving back to the relationship there was before.”
Trump at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (Photo: Gian Ehrenzeller/Keystone via AP)He said the current commentary from the Continent had been caused directly by a series of anti-European policies, insults by Trump’s administration and threats to interfere with politics in Europe, culminating in his threats to Greenland. This had brought home the need for Europe to take a stand.
“When you’re touching on political home territory there is really now a pressing need to get bolder. You’re talking about your own sovereignty and your own democracy – it’s not just a matter of tariffs and steel and aluminium,” he said.
He added: “Trump went too far and crossed all the red lines. He went to the heart of Europe’s interests.”
Trump’s contempt for America’s traditional allies has already backfired on him, experts say. European and Asian nations have refused to help the US reopen the Strait of Hormuz, pointing out that his war is a “war of choice” on which none of them were consulted.
“President Trump’s attempts to dominate the world now appear to be pushing the United States to the fringes of world politics, where other countries and regions are no longer looking to the US for leadership, and now see it as a disruptive and malignant influence,” said Dr David Andersen, associate professor in US politics at Durham University. “This is remaking the international order in ways that are difficult to predict.”
Andersen noted the rapidity of the relationship’s decline. “It is somewhat impressive that President Trump has managed to exhaust nearly 75 years of goodwill built up between the US and Europe, but it seems that he has,” he said.
Vice President JD Vance’s contemptuous speech insulted and dismissed European nations at the 61st Munich Security Conference (Photo: Tobias Schwarz/AFP via Getty Images)He added: “With Trump’s imposition of tariffs, his demands that Nato countries increase defence spending, his entering into a war with Iran without consultation, and his continued threats to remove American involvement with Nato and European protection more generally, Europe is growing tired of the endless demands and assumption that they will submit to them.”
Standing up to Trump is a political win
Politicians on the continent also have something to gain domestically by standing up to Trump. A recent poll suggested that almost a third of voters across Europe’s six largest countries now saw the US as a threat, leaving politicians who had been close to Trump in the past looking vulnerable.
That includes the Italian Prime Minister, Georgia Meloni, who recently lost a referendum to reform her country’s judicial system. Some analysts have suggested the vote was as much of a popularity contest as a chance to decide the complicated issues on the ballot paper.
Maillard said: “Even Meloni’s had to be careful because some see her closeness with Trump, at a moment when the war in Iran is widely unpopular, and say she’s too close to Trump.”
The right-wing Italian Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, has been one of Trump’s closest allies in Europe (Photo: Win McNamee/Getty Images)Jim Moran, Associate Senior Fellow at the Centre for European Policy Studies and former EU ambassador, said: “Getting too close to Trump is now seen as an electoral liability in many EU countries [as well as in the UK].”
Trump’s attitude has expedited Europe’s moves to build links with other regions of the world. Moran pointed to the growing number of trade deals the EU was forging with countries alienated by the Trump administration.
“Witness the acceleration of major new trade agreements with partners who feel the same way, notably [South American trade bloc] Mercosur and – just last moth – Australia,” he said. “Both of these agreements had been blocked for years until recently, but the growing unreliability of the US as an ally has forced both sides to look elsewhere for sustenance.”
Europe’s options are limited
However, Europe will be dependent on the US for the foreseeable future. While it may be able to look elsewhere economically, it cannot separate itself from the US entirely because it relies on it for everything from security and intelligence to energy and technology.
This, said Maillard, is unlikely to change for at least a decade. “It’s just a case of Ukraine that keeps Europeans onside and the fact we still rely on the US for defence,” he said.
The US has been the backbone of the Nato military alliance since its founding, and the threat of US military intervention has deterred aggression against its members for more than 75 years. Repeated threats to withdraw the US imperil the security of Nato’s members.
On Wednesday, Trump repeated his threats to withdraw from Nato after his appeals to European allies to join the war in Iran went unanswered.
Trump with European leaders in Washington last August (Photo: Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP).Philip Bednarczyk, Director of the German Marshall Fund’s Warsaw Office, does not believe the current situation spells the end for Nato. “But Europe is starting to question its bullet-proof nature,” he said. “Nato is still the backbone of European defence, but there’s a shyness there.
However, there are still splits in Europe when it comes to the best way to deal with the US. Right-wing governments like that of Viktor Orbán in Hungary, which maintains close ties with Russia and has proven a thorn in Brussels’ side over numerous issues, have been singled out for favour by the Trump administration.
Dr Daniel S Hamilton, Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institute said: “Responses to Trump vary greatly. A focus on Trump distracts from the fact that there is no European strategy toward Iran, the Middle East, China, Russia or other major issues. European responses to Trump will remain fragmented, and Trump will exploit those differences – as will [Vladimir] Putin and Xi [Jinping] – by playing the Europeans off against each other. It’s easy to do.”
Right now, said Bednarczyk, neither faction seems to truly want to dissolve the relationship. “They’re bickering and blaring at each other but neither seems to want to. Maybe that’s a good thing. The tough part is how to see past this.”
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