EU leaders’ approaches to Trump will vary
Some countries look for international support or closer economic ties while others are in 'damage control' mode
US President Donald Trump’s refusal to condemn unequivocally the violence by far-right groups at a rally in Charlottesville was a “huge mistake”, German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel said yesterday. Trump’s election has undermined the stability of the transatlantic partnership that for decades has been a central pillar of foreign policy for leading European countries and for the EU itself.
What next
Mainstream European leaders will focus on avoiding any further deterioration in transatlantic commercial and security ties, with the hope that warmer relations can be restored after Trump leaves office. Illiberal governments in Hungary and Poland will try to cultivate ties to signal to Brussels that they have international support. Meanwhile, London is eager to demonstrate the ongoing relevance of the UK-US ‘special relationship’ and promote closer commercial ties.
Subsidiary Impacts
- Trump’s attacks on Germany’s trade surplus helped bring the issue to the fore and Berlin is likely to raise investment after the election.
- Merkel will seek to counter any claims from other parties that her pledge to raise defence spending implies subservience to Trump.
- EU leaders may highlight the role non-military spending plays in improving security to counter Trump's demands for higher defence spending.
Analysis
Trump's disparaging comments about the EU and NATO, his desire for warmer relations with Russia under President Vladimir Putin and more generally his populist nationalism have forced European leaders to reassess how their countries as well as the EU as a whole should approach the United States. Various leaders have followed very different strategies.
United Kingdom
UK Prime Minister Theresa May set the tone for the relationship her government hoped to have with Trump shortly after he took office in January, when she became the first foreign leader to visit him (see UK/US: Close ties could irritate the EU - March 10, 2017). The abiding image of the meeting was one of the two leaders holding hands.
At the time, Trump disparaged the EU as a vehicle for Germany to dominate Europe, celebrated Brexit and predicted other states would follow the United Kingdom's example and also leave the EU.
There is a danger that May's embrace of Trump could alienate some voters. Nevertheless, May and other cabinet ministers have continued their efforts to cultivate close ties with the Trump administration, focusing particularly on talking up the prospect of a post-Brexit US-UK trade deal -- with Trump recently promising that a "very big and exciting" agreement was in the works.
Any US-UK trade deal would not fully make up for UK departure from the EU single market
The May government clearly hopes to use its relationship with the Trump administration to suggest to voters that it can open up new global opportunities for UK business outside the EU. In reality, any US-UK trade deal would take many years to negotiate and would do very little to compensate for the damage caused by leaving the EU's single market.
Germany
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has had perhaps the frostiest relations with Trump.
Where May rushed to embrace him, Merkel sent a very different message. On the day after his election, she sent Trump a congratulatory note with a remarkable broadside against his right-wing nationalist politics: she pointedly said the United States and Germany were "bound by common values -- democracy, freedom, as well as respect for the rule of law and the dignity of each and every person, regardless of their origin, skin colour, creed, gender, sexual orientation or political views. It is based on these values that I wish to offer close cooperation."
The two leaders have had several awkward meetings since then, and though there have been moments of rapprochement, the overall tone has remained chilly.
The tone between Merkel and Trump is chilly
Trump has attacked German trade surpluses and threatened to cut off imports of German car exports, called Merkel's refugee policy catastrophic and suggested that Germany owes the United States money from its failure to meet NATO's 2% spending target (see GERMANY: Higher spending is likely - July 24, 2017).
Meanwhile, though German officials continue to emphasise the importance of German-US relations, Merkel made it clear after meeting Trump at the NATO summit in June that the times in which Europe could "fully count on" the United States in security matters were gone.
France
French President Emmanuel Macron's approach to the Trump administration has been perhaps the most surprising and effective. Macron's main opponent for the presidency was a right-wing nationalist -- Marine Le Pen -- who embraced Trump and was embraced by him.
Macron was endorsed by former US President Barack Obama; his internationalist, centrist message was based on an explicit rejection of nearly everything Trump stood for. Moreover, Macron has not hesitated to criticise Trump -- for instance, for his withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement -- and he described his famous white-knuckle handshake with the US president in May as a "moment of truth" in which he had shown Trump that he would stand up to him.
It therefore surprised many when Macron invited Trump to visit Paris on July 14, to attend the Bastille Day celebrations. He treated Trump to a visit full of pomp and circumstance, including a military parade and a dinner in the Eiffel Tower.
Macron is trying to appeal to Trump's pride and luxurious tastes
It appears that Macron's strategy was to bolster France's relations with the United States by appealing to Trump's pride and luxurious tastes (much as Saudi Arabia did in May), thus showing him the kind of respect that Trump feels many other world leaders have denied him.
Europe's back-sliders
The EU is in the middle of a major crisis of 'democratic backsliding', in which right-wing nationalist governments either have launched (in Hungary's case) or are launching (in Poland's case) challenges to democratic norms as currently understood in most EU capitals.
These leaders see Trump -- with his nationalist ideology and repeated praise of such leaders as Putin -- as an important ally. Poland's Law and Justice party government basked in Trump's support during his recent visit to Warsaw, even as it was caught up in escalating tensions with both the European Commission and its own citizenry (see EU: Trump Warsaw visit will widen intra-European rifts - July 10, 2017).
These governments will likely continue to cultivate close bilateral relations with the Trump administration.
EU institutions
While the moderate faction within the Trump administration (led by Vice President Mike Pence, National Security Advisor HR McMaster and Secretary of Defense James Mattis) has made great effort to reassure EU leaders of US support for European integration, voices from the nationalist faction (led by such advisers as Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller) -- and above all from Trump himself -- continue to contradict this message with attacks on the EU, most recently calling it "very protectionist".
In a February 2017 document, European Council President Donald Tusk identified "worrying declarations" by the Trump administration as one of the main external threats facing Europe -- alongside Russia and Islamist terrorism.
Despite some efforts at reconciliation, tensions remain palpable, and EU leaders will likely use the unreliability or hostility of the Trump administration as a justification for pushing forward with initiatives to deepen integration and cooperation, especially in the area of defence (see EU: Defence may focus on cooperation, not integration - July 21, 2017).
