EU opts for risky wait-and-see approach to Trump presidency

As Europe prepared for the presidential election in the United States, some leaders worried they didn’t have a plan in place for a potential second Donald Trump administration.

Now that he’s going to be the next president of the U.S., they still don’t.

Europe’s reportedly stealthy planning for a tumultuous second Trump administration has turned out to be a risky wait-and-see operation, rather than one of preemptive action.

With its strongest economies, France and Germany, in positions of political weakness, and an increase in right-wing populism within its eastern borders, there’s not much the collective leadership of the European Union can be emboldened to do. 

European diplomats and officials are scrambling now to understand just how much of Trump’s campaign promises to Europe — namely, to grind the Continent’s economy to a halt through trade tariffs and expand Russia’s war in Ukraine to its turf — he will deliver on. 

So after months of hand-wringing about securing the EU and its economy, Brussels is mostly waiting out Trump’s plans, especially on trade and security, rather than announcing preemptive strikes that could spook him into harmful action, senior EU diplomats and officials said.

The EU is “in listening mode,” said one senior EU diplomat, who, like others, was granted anonymity to discuss the sensitive negotiations. That passive approach is likely due to the fact that Trump’s Republican Party has been more emboldened by his win this time around than after his shock victory in 2016. And because for the EU, there’s more to lose. 

In the immediate aftermath of the election, European leaders were quick to congratulate the former reality TV star — without the moral high ground that dominated their 2016 messages. They have been keen to engage with Trump’s transition team and are already dangling carrots to get the relationship started on the right foot.

“It’s going to be quite a different sort of government, and far more disruptive to European interests than what we saw last time around, at a time when the stakes are much higher,” said Mark Leonard of the European Council on Foreign Relations.

Weapons, money and tariffs

In recent months, ahead of the U.S. presidential election, European leaders scrambled publicly to showcase continued support for both NATO and Ukraine even as Trump displayed outright hostility toward continued aid to Kyiv. His repeated promises to end the war early into his administration has prompted concern from Ukraine’s EU allies as to what such a shift in American policy could mean for the war-torn country and the pro-Ukraine continent. 

But it’s not just security and defense that have left European officials and diplomats uncertain as to how to act. As the EU wrestles with a cost-of-living crisis amid the fallout of the Covid-19 pandemic response and the war in Ukraine, it must now deal with purported U.S. tariff plans, which could trigger further contractions in national economies. Trump has vowed to impose across-the-board tariffs of 10 percent to 20 percent on European goods. 

Trump has also singled out Germany, and its big car exporters, for particular spite in his trade tirades. In October, only weeks before his Nov. 5 election victory, Trump threatened: “All the nice European little countries that get together, they don’t take our cars. They don’t take our farm products.

“No, no, no,” he added. “They are going to have to pay a big price.”

Some experts have said such threats, if acted upon, could lead to a recession for the EU. In addition to disrupting global trade — and especially Chinese exports — through his tariffs, Trump’s return could also deal a death blow to the rules-based global trading order. The result would be “profound economic losses,” according to Germany’s Kiel Institute for the World Economy, which forecasts a fall of up to 0.5 percent in EU gross domestic product and a decline in German output of 3.2 percent.

For now, the EU is waiting out Trump’s threats.

“Of course scenarios are being considered and it is also our job to at least make sure we are prepared,” said Dutch Trade Minister Reinette Klever. “But it’s not wise at this time to go public with all those scenarios. It would also not be good for our negotiating position.”

Little to agree on

The challenge will be to keep the bloc united if Trump attempts to divide and conquer several EU countries, given their political and economic sensitivities and differences. 

Paris, for example, has long pushed the EU to be more independent when it comes to the bloc’s defense and security. Only days after Trump’s win, French President Emmanuel Macron was quick to tell his fellow leaders in a meeting in Budapest that “the world is made up of herbivores and carnivores. If we decide to remain herbivores, then the carnivores will win and we will be a market for them.”

At an informal dinner that same night, Macron’s message did not lead to concrete commitments or decisions, leaving some leaders in the room disappointed. 

Estonian Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur said the EU has the money to fill the gap if the U.S were to pull the plug on providing military aid to Ukraine. “The issue is not the money, it is political,” he told POLITICO.

Politically, the EU is in a difficult transition phase. The new European Commission took months to set up, and will only take office Dec. 1. 

Meanwhile, Berlin is bracing for a new election in February. Any European ideas for more common European spending or more military aid for Ukraine could quickly become sensitive in the German election campaign. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, a social democrat, is already positioning himself to voters as the “prudent” choice ahead of the election, and is digging in on his refusal to provide Kyiv with Germany’s Taurus long-range missiles. 

Even after the German election, convincing Berlin to cough up more money for common European finance spending won’t be easy, risking a bleak security outlook for the bloc.

“We are at a critical stage where a lot of the basic blocks of European prosperity are in danger of being threatened,” Leonard said.