How much (all) EU leaders love U.S. comfortable protection

The first shock had come eight years ago when Donald Trump won his first race for the White House. The second, much stronger, came in recent months and then became devastating in recent days. The leaders of the European Union can no longer sit comfortably in their chairs, aligned, for the most part, with U.S. foreign and trade policy, relaxed by the large asset we have in exports, protected by NATO’s umbrella.

This has been the case for decades, in which EU leaders have been able to play at occasional small nationalisms, small and marginal dreams of grandeur and prestige, for some even with the feeling of being a military power of some weight. At any rate, we were, and still are, allied with the United States, the greatest economic and military power in the World, and in essence, we always fell in line.

But then, eight years ago, an impetuous and still confused U.S. president raised some concerns: the EU did not have a “plan B” to deal with a new relationship with the U.S. that had become more nationalistic and protectionist than it used to be. Meanwhile, China has expanded its influence in the world, and India has grown, but four years ago, the Democrats regained the White House, and even though things had continued to turn in a somewhat different direction from the previous 70 years, all in all, the EU felt more at ease with Joe Biden. For two or three years, only very few people thought that a “plan B” was needed in case Trump returned to power. The only debate that took some space was the debate on European defence. Still, it was an idle debate hardly anyone believed in because every European statelet (from France and Germany on down) is foolishly proud of its useless military independence, which is unable to defend any single country or even integrate for greater efforts. We have not even been able to produce enough ammunition for Ukraine’s needs, just saying.

Now the Democrats will leave the White House, Trump is well prepared this time, and it seems he already has numerous pieces of legislation ready to implement in the first few days; in Europe, the math is already being done on how many hundreds of billions the tariffs he will put on our goods will cost us. NATO is trembling, and in Ukraine, panic rises; in short, we are completely exposed because we have done nothing to strengthen our political, economic, and military structures.

The same will be the case with the not few governments that feel friendly to Trump’s Republican U.S., primarily Italy and Hungary, but there are others, and more are to come. Even these leaders who belong to the nationalist, protectionist wave of which Trump is the champion are behaving exactly like those that came before them: they are looking at their own borders, and it does not even cross their minds to gain European autonomy from the US, to strengthen the system to which they belong. They, too, seek “comfortable protection” provided by the American giant, perhaps in competition with other European partners. And the admonitions of those who say that the Union, at this historical stage, must make a turnaround end up in the trash, like those of poor Mario Draghi (who seems to be the only giant among the European dwarfs), who keeps harping on something no one wants to hear.

But Trump has no friends, and he won’t lift a finger to do anything that doesn’t have immediate personal gain. And we will be increasingly divided and alone. Little states with mediocre rulers, who believe that a country like Italy, Germany, or even tiny Hungary can have a self-governing living space.