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11:35 10.02.2025 •
The Anglo-Saxon world is cracking. More and more articles are appearing in Britain in which the English criticize Trump's policies. Britain is sliding into the back seat in world politics, and this is very annoying for London. It reflects in a mass of publications in the British press. They are waiting for Trump to fail with his policies... Here is a one from ‘The Economist’
If Trump convinces partners that the post-1945 order really is dead, things will get ugly…
These are heady times for supporters of President Donald Trump. In their telling, their champion has declared a new era in which America will use its strength without embarrassment to secure its interests, and the world is falling in line.
For leading members of Trumpworld, such a scuttling retreat is no surprise. As they see it, the globalised, America-led world order that followed the second world war had become a racket. Especially in the hubristic years after the Soviet Union crumbled, when Washington grandees surveyed a world seemingly without rivals, successive presidents allowed feckless allies and trade partners to free-ride on American security and steal American jobs. Now, like thieves caught in the act, foreigners feel Mr Trump’s righteous, America First wrath, and know the game is up.
As a Republican senator, Marco Rubio spent years as a Reagan-praising advocate of a muscular American foreign policy. After a conversion to Trumpism, he is now the secretary of state. Explaining his new job on Fox News, Mr Rubio described telling foreign counterparts: “I know you’ve gotten used to a foreign policy in which you act in the national interest of your country and we sort of act in the interest of the globe or the global order. But we are led by a different kind of person now.”
Seen from Washington, it looks as if even rich, proud allies are in retreat. Take Europe. Mr Trump has demanded that America should buy the mineral-rich island of Greenland from Denmark. Rather than confront him, the Danes have asked European leaders to avoid statements that might provoke Mr Trump. Small wonder Mr Trump sounds serene, telling reporters last month that “we will get” Greenland. America must control the island because Denmark cannot defend the Arctic from China and Russia, insisted Mr Trump, mocking Danish plans to beef up its northern defences as adding “two dog sleds” (while neglecting to mention American armed forces already stationed in Greenland).
In truth, if Mr Trump thinks other governments are surrendering without a fight, and resigning themselves to a new, might-makes-right world order, he is miscalculating. Most allies believe in the post-1945 system that he so despises, and hope to defend its essential elements. Avoiding fights is an initial, tactical response. A second plan involves buying him off, explain senior figures in Brussels. Though European Union trade officials have spent months modelling the costs of various Trump tariffs on eu exports, and of retaliatory moves, the real ambition is to avoid all-out trade conflict.
But gestures of appeasement and tactical retreats on minor issues can buy only so much time, and Europe is realising that far harder choices loom. Mr Trump’s assault is broader and more profound than anticipated, says Steven Everts, director of the eu Institute for Security Studies, an eu policy-planning and research agency. “The attack was expected to come on trade and economics, we were ready for that.” Europe’s plan was to hedge its bets to keep globalisation alive, he relates: “There are 7.5bn people who aren’t Americans, let’s trade more with them.”
Mr Trump, however, is picking fights that touch on Europe’s core interests, as a bloc whose strength lies in unity and in rules. In Brussels a striking number of Eurocrats express angst about a dispute that pits Elon Musk and other American technology bosses against an eu law, the Digital Services Act. The act requires social-media firms to control misinformation, hate speech and illegal content on their platforms. Eurocrats investigating how X (banned in Russia) and other firms police content could impose huge fines. Mr Musk, the owner of X, calls that outrageous censorship, even as he wades into Europe’s culture wars by promoting hard-right and antiimmigrant demagogues on social media.
European leaders are trying to accommodate Mr.Trump — for now. A handful of populist leaders share his views. A larger group is betting that he will become distracted and find other targets. Some hope to wait him out. But the moment that Mr. Trump convinces allies that their favoured world order is dead, their incentives will reverse. With nothing to lose, even friendly European governments will try to deceive, resist and hedge against a hostile America. Already, influential voices in Brussels, Berlin and other capitals murmur that Europe should draw closer to China.
Mr Trump loves winning. Actually, many allies and rivals still hope that he may yet fail.
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