Talking Trump 2.0 with Brussels Signal
Culture clash incoming between the EU and the Trump White House
I was recently invited to speak with Brussels Signal—a spunky new media in the EU Bubble—on EU-U.S. relations under the incoming Trump II Administration.
Key points:
There are two major culture clashes between Trump and Europe.
Firstly there is a societal culture clash between MAGA and mainline Europe: While 50% of American voters supported Trump, the overwhelming majority of people in most European countries would have voted for Kamala Harris.
Pro-Trump sentiment does increase in eastern European countries, with outright majority support in Russia, Serbia, Georgia, Hungary, Bulgaria, Moldova, Slovakia, and Slovenia.
Public opinion on Trump in Europe seems to broadly reflect national elite politico-media opinion on him. European support for Trump also seems to coincide with pro-neutral or pro-Russian sentiment and/or alienation from the EU mainstream.
Ironically, MAGA as a movement shows the Republican Party pivoting to more European-style norms on some issues, such as support for the welfare state (Social Security, Medicare) and less restrictive positions on abortion and IVF. Europeans for their part increasingly have similar concerns to MAGA on (illegal) immigration and deindustrialization.
Secondly, there is a more specific institutional culture clash between Trump’s leadership style and the Brussels method.
With the EU, Europeans have developed complex processes to generate agreement needed for 27 nation-states to participate in a common market and trade bloc. The Brussels method favors consensus, the slow institutional and diplomatic accretion of agreements, and depoliticization through legal norms.
The Brussels method is anathema to Trump’s leadership style based on transactional agreements (“deals”), personal relationships and instincts, unpredictability, and spectacle.
While the Brussels method tends to sweep disagreements under the rug, the Trump method makes a spectacle of them.
Call it institutionalism vs. personalism.
Italian Prime Minister Georgia Meloni, as a national conservative and friend of Elon Musk, could emerge as a crucial intermediary between the Trump White House and the rest of the EU bloc. (Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán could in principle also be such an intermediary but he is too much of a black sheep in Brussels circles.)
The Trump 2.0 Administration’s actions are significantly underdetermined on many issues, partly because it is unclear what Trump will want and partly because it is unclear what the broader U.S. regime will allow him to do.
Unpredictability I: Trump’s unpredictability is a feature, not a bug: Trump’s fly-by-the-seat-of-his-pants management style is built into his temperament. He has made a virtue of it, as Trump’s braggadocious unpredictability makes for spectacular drama, may strengthen his position in negotiations, and make him able to memorably claim victory afterwards (rightly or wrongly).
This makes it very hard to say what Trump will do, particularly in areas of strong presidential power such as on tariffs affecting EU exporters or in the efforts to end the war in Ukraine.
Unpredictability II: How will the new GOP coalition consolidate? Trump’s cabinet nominees have been a mix of standard Republican picks and new colorful personalities with their own followings like Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard (call them “the Avengers” or “MAGA+”).
Both of the latter picks go radically against previous Republican Party orthodoxy on issues like food and drug regulation or interventionist foreign policy. RFK, Jr. has actually called on the U.S. to copy the EU’s broader bans on chemicals in food. Another victory for the Regulatory Superpower!
It is unclear how the anti-interventionist Gabbard is supposed to cooperate with the hawkish Marco Rubio (nominated to be Secretary of State). Donald Trump, Jr. recently criticized escalation in the Ukraine War using traditionally left-wing talking points on “the military-industrial complex” risking World War III.
Trump will likely try to balance the elements of the new Republican coalition: MAGA+, fiscal conservatives, religious conservatives, neoconservatives, and the Tech Right. It is quite likely individual figures and maybe whole segments will defect from the coalition due to personality and/or policy differences.
Unpredictability III: How will checks and balances function?: We still need to see how the Trump 2.0 White House will be counterbalanced by the Senate, House, Supreme Court, states, and other players in the U.S. system of checks and balances.
The Supreme Court has a majority of conservative, not MAGA, justices. Republicans have a majority of only 1 seat in the House. The GOP has a majority of 3 in the Senate, but senators have long cherished their independence, both on legislation and in their role in providing “advice and consent” on cabinet nominees and, to a lesser extent, foreign policy.
So far, the Senate GOP has shown independence by electing South Dakota’s John Thune as Senate majority leader, instead of the more MAGA-aligned Tim Scott of South Carolina. Republican Senators have also secured the withdrawal of Trump’s nomination of Matt Gaetz as Attorney General. Trump seems to have gracefully accepted these decisions.
Unpredictability IV: Will Trump tame the Deep State?: Assuming Trump has a foreign policy concept—not so during the first term—will the United States’ vast National Security State and foreign policy and intelligence establishment cooperate in implementing it? In the first term, Trump was constantly undermined by leaks, spooks, and infighting. It seems Trump is much more strongly positioned than during the first term.
The U.S. may not always be pretty but it is sustaining its global power and influence, while Europe and Japan continue to decline relatively and sometimes absolutely.
American power is driven by continued demographic, economic, and technological expansion. In particular, the U.S. is leading in cutting-edge fields critical to the future like tech, AI, space, and biotech. Only China is a plausible peer competitor.
The U.S. economy will likely do well: Tax cuts, cheap energy, and deregulation are good for economic growth, whatever their effects on the climate or consumers more broadly. We saw in the first term that tariffs and lower illegal immigration did not prevent strong growth, until COVID-19. Ceteris paribus, caveat emptor, etc.
To foster its independence and bargaining power, the EU must restore its competitiveness and technological prowess. Otherwise, Europeans will have to resign themselves with the reality of living in continued technological, military, and cultural dependence on a power they don’t much like.