“The growing influence of nationalist European parties gives us great optimism. Our goal must be to help Europe correct its current course.” This is one of several controversial statements contained in a national security document released by the White House in the early hours of the morning.
Europe will lose its essence, according to the administration Donald Trumpand will be at risk of deletion as such. As for Russia and imperialism? No, because of immigrant and cultural influences I woke up.
It’s the Old Continent’s version of what was announced Tuesday as Trump’s “corollary” to the “Monroe Doctrine.” If this is usually summed up by the phrase “America for Americans,” the current president reaffirmed it in a document marking the 202nd anniversary of her declaration: “The American people—not foreign nations or international institutions—will always control their own destiny in our hemisphere.”
The text was a typical hodgepodge of historical inaccuracies that Trump has become accustomed to, stating that Monroe intended to establish US supremacy within Western civilization.
It is clear that the United States in 1823 was a nation to be built, with no ambition to assert any superiority because it did not exist, and was engaged in constant warfare with the Indian tribes and the State of Mexico to expand its territory.
Donald Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance on Tuesday at the White House.
Reuters
The struggle against liberal democracy
In 1823, for example, Napoleon Bonaparte He just died on St. Helena and Louis XVIII He sent his troops to Spain to impose absolutism for another ten years Ferdinand VII. We’re not talking about a world that’s very similar to the current world, the fact is that it’s scary that this is the historical reference for this White House.
Logically speaking, there were no international organizations because the world was “room-for-all” with European countries fighting among themselves whether on the continent or in expanding their emerging colonies.
However, this is the world that Trump and his vice president are missing J.D. Vancethe isolationist world that deep America dreams of, always skeptical of any centrality, even Washington centrality, which the aforementioned “national” parties appeal to, and on which the MAGA movement wants to rely to implement its agenda.
Europe, specifically the European Union, does not mean to them progress and stability, as has appeared since its founding, but rather weakness, loss of values, and misunderstood tolerance.
In other words, Trump thinks the same way as Putin about European democracies, and it is precisely the term “democracy” that he hates, at least with regard to ensuring individual and collective rights, which has been called “liberal democracy” since the fall of totalitarianism in the middle of the last century.
The idea, clearly, is a return to the rule of force rather than law… If that is what he wants for Europe, it is understandable that he will want the same for the United States and will do everything in his power to achieve it.
How did populism take over Europe?
This global movement—there is something ironic about the globalization of patriotism, but this contradiction does not seem to matter much to its leaders—is part of the rise of so-called “patriotism.” Alt-right In the middle of the last decade.
Steve BannonIn addition to supporting Trump’s first candidacy and being his chief advisor for years, he has devoted a significant portion of his political activism to promoting far-right alternatives in liberal states. Cooperation and funds from the Kremlin were not absent in this process.
Thus, Trump’s election in 2016 coincided with Brexit and with the National Front’s unexpected victory in the French European elections.
Despite democratic attempts to isolate these forces and keep them from power, the short-term prospects are not very promising for moderate parties.
National group for Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella The Reform Party in France leads opinion polls Nigel Farage It does the same in the UK, while the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party competes with the Chancellor’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU). Friedrich Merz For first place. In the former German Democratic Republic, the party has already become the most popular party by a large margin.
If we add to that Georgia Meloni Already rules in Italy – despite Bannon’s initial bet Vladimir Putin outside Matteo SalviniIt can be said that populism is due to luck… even though its greatest reference is in Europe. Viktor OrbánHe is going through a bad period in the polls.
As for Spain, Vox maintains excellent voting prospects, although not on the same level as its fellow travellers. However, the inability of the two major parties of liberal democracy, the People’s Party and the Socialist Workers’ Party, to agree on anything at all, makes them, along with nationalist and leftist populists, an essential component of the country’s governance.
Donald Trump during a Cabinet meeting at the White House.
Goodbye to NATO?
Behind words, there are actions. Just on Friday, it emerged that the Pentagon had informed its European partners that they must take over responsibility for most of NATO’s conventional defenses by 2027.
It is clear that the deadline, such as allocating 5% of GDP to defense investments, has not yet been met. Either this is a way to put pressure on their allies, or, more likely, they are looking for excuses to step down and leave the alliance.
Indeed during his first term, according to the then National Security Advisor, John Boltonin his book The room where it all happenedTrump even gave the order to immediately withdraw from NATO, considering that Europe is exploiting the United States economically and militarily.
Bolton reported the decision to the Pentagon, which prepared disconnection protocols, but the president suddenly changed his mind again.
The idea of leaving Europe to its fate is based on a lack of inappropriate historical knowledge of the leaders of a great power. Last week, one of President Trump’s court advisors, a journalist Tucker CarlsonHe said he did not understand why England had entered the war Adolf Hitler If the only thing the German means is “fighting communism”.
As if it didn’t exist Neville ChamberlainNeither the Munich Conference, nor the Molotov-von Ribbentrop Pact, nor Pearl Harbor were a perfect example of what it meant to side with the imperialist powers: sooner or later, it would be your turn.
The battle against I woke up It seems to legitimize any corrupt authoritarianism. A Europe in which every country becomes an island would lead to the same conflicts that devastated the continent until World War II.
It was the United States that brought rationalism at that time, and it was it that promoted, with its policies, money and soldiers, the creation of the United Nations and the European Union and the struggle against Soviet totalitarianism. Totalitarianism now seems to be back, but this is being received with enthusiasm from the other side of the Atlantic. As if it wouldn’t affect them. As if the year 1941 had never existed.