By Mark Leonard
BERLIN – As European leaders wake up to the reality of Donald Trump’s impending return to the White House, they must take care to avoid two big traps: panic and denial. It won’t be easy, but the stakes are too high to fail.
The reasons for panic are obvious. Trump may be unpredictable and mercurial, but there is little doubt that his political instincts and stated plans will shake the pillars of Europe’s security, economic, and political order.
On security, Europeans have every reason to fear that Trump’s proposed “peace plan” for Ukraine will deprive that country of its territorial integrity and leave it demilitarized and permanently excluded from NATO. And NATO itself may well go “dormant,” with America radically reducing its participation and handing responsibility for the alliance’s military command and resources over to the Europeans.
In the Middle East, Europeans rightly worry that Trump’s plan to secure peace will mean supporting the expansionist plans of Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s extremist coalition, perhaps even including the Palestinians’ expulsion from Gaza and the West Bank and their resettlement in Egypt and Jordan.
The economic scenarios are even scarier. Trump has talked about imposing a universal import tariff of 10-20 percent, and a 60 percent tariff on goods from China. Such a policy risks triggering a global trade war, with governments introducing retaliatory measures against the U.S. If China is shut out of the US market, Europeans will be even more vulnerable to the supply effects of its manufacturing overcapacity.
Making matters worse, Europe’s response to another Trump presidency may well be hampered by the “illiberal international,” which includes Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.
For all these reasons, European leaders are on the verge of panic and feel tempted to rush to Washington to cut bilateral deals – as many did during Trump’s first term. If they do, it will come directly at the expense of European unity.
But the second trap is just as dangerous. If European leaders fall into denial about the scale of the threat Trump poses, they will not take the necessary steps to build resilience. Europeans have known for the past four years that Trump could return, and they have made some progress toward addressing their new geopolitical vulnerability with higher defense spending (collectively, Europeans now spend over 2 percent of their GDP on defense) and diversification away from Russian gas. But overall, they have been far too slow.
Some are buoyed by false confidence, telling themselves that if they survived one Trump term, they can survive another. But the Trump of 2017-20 was an outsider who had been surprised by his own election and craved establishment recognition. This time, he is dead set on revenge against the establishment that thwarted him before, and he has had plenty of time to prepare for office. European leaders must take him at his word and brace themselves.
Confronted with these scenarios, the most urgent task for European leaders is to use the 70-odd days between now and January 20, 2025, to agree on their common interests and work out how to defend them – together with the U.S. if possible, but alone if necessary. That means drafting a concrete plan to protect Europe from both security and economic pressures.
The most immediate concern is Ukraine. To prevent a deal that leaves Ukraine demilitarized and shut out of NATO, Europe needs to ensure a steady flow of ammunition and air defenses in the short term, while providing Ukraine with credible long-term security guarantees. It also must figure out how to spend more efficiently on defense, increase the volume of combat-ready forces available to NATO and the European Union, and – if necessary – strengthen its own nuclear deterrence.
The second most challenging issue will be trade. If Trump keeps his promise of levying across-the-board import tariffs, a trade war between the EU and its biggest export market is inevitable. In a world where geopolitics and geoeconomics are increasingly intertwined, the bloc should prepare countermeasures against the U.S. and seek to expand trade with the rest of the world.
Trump’s victory also completely changes the context for the EU’s relationship with the United Kingdom. Since the Labour Party took office in July, cross-channel contacts have increased significantly. But now there should be an accelerated push to make a big, bold offer to the UK to create a new partnership.
For his part, U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer should commit to working toward a stronger and more united Europe. He should put everything on the table, including exploring how Britain’s nuclear deterrent can contribute to collective European security. And he should show how the U.K. can help extend European power and security through cooperation on sanctions, technology controls, supply chains, critical raw materials, energy security, migration and joint action against gangs and human traffickers, among other issues.
To make that happen, the biggest EU member states – France, Germany, Italy, Poland and Spain – will need to transcend their respective domestic politics to establish a pan-European consensus. German leadership – whether it comes from the current government or from a new Christian Democratic-led coalition after the spring elections – is more important than ever, but the smaller, more exposed northern and eastern European countries will also have an important role to play. Accordingly, they should form a caucus within the EU to work with officials in Brussels to make “geopolitical Europe” into a reality.
Europe’s response to Trump’s return will require creativity, resilience and an unshakable commitment to defending its own interests. Every crisis offers an opportunity, and Europeans have a chance to craft a stronger, more self-sufficient bloc that can stand up for itself in an age of global disorder.
Mark Leonard, director of the European Council on Foreign Relations, is the author of “The Age of Unpeace: How Connectivity Causes Conflict” (Bantam Press, 2021). This article was distributed by Project Syndictae.
