EU’s Trump challenge : The Tribune India

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EU’s Trump challenge

IN an interview to a leading UK paper last month Donald Trump, as President-elect, expressed doubts about the future of the European Union (EU) and indifference too.

EU’s Trump challenge

The US-Europe alliance is a force to reckon with on the international stage but Donald Trump has called NATO ‘obsolete’.



Vivek Katju

IN an interview to a leading UK paper last month Donald Trump, as President-elect, expressed doubts about the future of the European Union (EU) and indifference too. This was not surprising for he hailed Brexit as being a "great thing" and the EU as only a "vehicle for Germany". With European unity eroding because of the spread of anti-globalisation and counter-regionalisation forces which succeeded in achieving Brexit. Trump's negativity towards Europe is a major blow to supporters of the European project.

Obviously responding to Trump's attitude towards the EU, Donald Tusk, former Prime Minister of Poland and since 2014 President of the European Council, the EU's apex body, wrote in an open letter to the leaders of the Union's member-states in January after the Trump inauguration, “Particularly the changes in Washington puts the European Union in a difficult situation; with the new administration seeming to put into question the last 70 years of American foreign policy”. Significantly, Tusk put Trump's pronouncements on Europe in the basket of overall external threats faced by the continent: Chinese maritime assertiveness, Russia's aggressive policies and anarchy in the Middle East and Africa. 

At a EU summit meeting in Malta on February 3, French President Francois Hollande said that European leaders will have to talk to Trump because of his views on trade and international conflicts. He stressed that in these discussions Europe would have to hold on to its interests and values. After the summit, Tusk underlined the importance of the US-Europe relations and emphasised that without the Transatlantic bond global peace and order cannot survive. 

No doubt, the US-European alliance is a pivotal global relationship. The US and Europe, acting together, continue to exercise a preponderant weight in world affairs despite changes in the international power calculus because of the rise of new and strong powers and the spread of economic prosperity. The US and Europe combined have the world's lion share of GDP, trade and capital. They also have almost a monopoly of cutting-edge technologies, more the US than Europe. There is great synergy between the US and European institutions to develop and retain such technologies. Together, the US and Europe possess the largest share of global military power and NATO is the world's leading military alliance. It was designed to provide US security cover to Western Europe against the Soviet Union during the Cold War. The US cover is a fundamental ingredient of the European security doctrine. Now a NATO expanded with many erstwhile Warsaw pact members is focused on combating terrorism but also on keeping Russia in check. The US is the real leader of NATO and shoulders the main financial burden of the alliance. Europe supports it, sometimes reluctantly, with men and material, as in Afghanistan. 

Clearly many European leaders find Trump's throw-in-your-face ‘America First’ brashness to be uncultured and offensive. Style apart, on substance too, the positions that Trump is adopting on issues such as immigration and refugee entry, trade, financial contributions to common defence and Russia, among others have generated hostility in Europe. Trump considers German Chancellor Angela Merkel's decision to allow refugees to enter Europe and into Germany to be "catastrophic". Merkel's views which prevailed in the EU against those who wanted Europe to firmly close the door on refugees has been unpopular among many Germans. It is based on the liberal principle that the religion of the refugee should not be a consideration while making a decision on entry. Trump's executive order on immigration and refugees has divided the US and has been stayed by the court. European leaders too have criticised it for violating liberal values and being counter-productive in the struggle against terrorism. It will be perceived to be anti-Islam; that perception will augment terrorist ranks.

Trump has vowed to get American jobs back to the country and ensure that US trade gets a fair deal. He has said for decades that US exports face discriminatory rules abroad which previous administrations have ignored. “For many decades we have enriched foreign industry at the expense of American industry”, he said in his inauguration speech in which he also underlined, “We will follow two simple rules: buy American and hire American”. It is unclear how will this impact on US-EU mutual investments, bilateral trade in goods and services. It is alarming Europe for Trump's protectionist attitude is contrary to the basic commercial and economic principles which it has pursued since the end of World War II. The future of the negotiations ongoing from 2013 to expand US-EU trade in goods and services, already facing much opposition in both, is now in grave doubt. Trump is likely to give preference to US trade deals with individual countries, instead of regional organisations.

Trump's warm references to Russian President Vladimir Putin have dismayed European opinion. Putin is an obstacle to NATO's embrace of all of Europe and has displayed this in Ukraine, including through the annexation of Crimea. The Obama administration and Europe had worked together to impose sanctions on Russian aggressiveness not only in Europe but also in the Middle East. Trump wants to strike a deal with Putin and is not too concerned by his harsh domestic policies though America's UN representatives have criticised recent Russian actions in Ukraine.

Not only has Trump called NATO "obsolete," he has called on its member-states to bear fair share of the expenditure in security and defence areas. Trump the businessman comes through: partners must share financial burden. Till now, Europe has been used to a generous US and many countries have reduced their defence expenditures. Now they may be compelled to adapt to Trump's rules in a painful process, not only in financial contributions but perhaps in far-reaching changes in NATO aims. EU's Trump challenge is not the first occasion when it has faced either US scepticism about its functioning and future or coercive approaches on specific issues. If President Eisenhower opposed Britain and France over the Suez Canal in 1956, almost 50 years later President Bush bypassed French and German opposition to attack Iraq in 2003. This time the challenge is more fundamental. Trump represents forces that have been marginalised by the integrative forces of globalisation itself. Within Europe, similar forces are seeking to unravel the European integration; Brexit is an example. What may be a greater blow is if Marine Le Pen, a Trump admirer and the far- right candidate succeeds in winning or dividing France in the upcoming Presidential election. Chances are though the US-Europe marriage may change complexion but will survive. 


The writer is a former Secretary, Ministry of External Affairs

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