Bracing for US election, Europe’s leaders seek to Trump-proof policies

Iowans this week braved record-cold temperatures to kick off the race for this year’s Republican presidential nomination. And their verdict – a comfortable win for Donald Trump – sent political shivers through America’s key allies in Europe.

Their immediate concern was what a second Trump presidency would mean for Ukraine. The Iowa result has brought a new sense of urgency to Europe’s efforts to find a “Trump-proof” way of ensuring Kyiv has the arms and ammunition to keep fending off Russian forces, even if Washington were to back away.

But there is also a far deeper worry.

It is that the entire fabric of the decades-old trans-Atlantic alliance – involving trade and tariffs, defense and security – could unravel should Mr. Trump follow up his Iowa victory with further primary wins and ultimately return to the White House.

The key concern is NATO, the military alliance that has long provided bedrock security. Europe is still far short of having a credible Plan B, either for arming Ukraine, or to safeguard itself against an emboldened Vladimir Putin if Washington were to retreat from its European commitments.

All this may sound like the kind of apocalyptic scenario spun by pundits in search of a catchy headline.

But political leaders across Europe have been sounding the alarm in recent weeks as Mr. Trump’s front-runner status for the nomination has solidified.

The morning after the vote in Iowa, Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo addressed the Parliament of the 27-nation European Union as his country assumed the bloc’s rotating presidency. A return to an “America first” policy in Washington, he warned, would leave Europe “on its own.”

Others have been even more outspoken.

Late last year, Germany’s defense minister said a Trump victory would be a “catastrophe” for Europe.

Earlier this month, Thierry Breton, France’s representative on the European Commission, was quoted as telling colleagues of an exchange Mr. Trump had with the commission’s president, Ursula von der Leyen, in the final year of his presidency in 2020.

“You need to understand that if Europe is under attack, we will never come to help you and support you,” Mr. Breton reported Mr. Trump as saying. “By the way, NATO is dead, and we will leave; we will quit NATO.”

Last week, the head of the European Central Bank, Christine Lagarde, departed from her usual reticence on political matters to sound a warning of her own. Judging from Mr. Trump’s first term, she said, a return to power would be “clearly a threat” to Europe.

Just look, she said, at his trade tariffs, his weak commitment to NATO, and his refusal to join the fight against climate change.

The prospect of a weakened NATO is especially alarming for the countries nearest Russia and Ukraine: Poland and the formerly Soviet Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.

They are urging heightened military preparedness, warning that Mr. Putin’s rearmament drive could position him to threaten Europe’s eastern flank within the next three to five years, especially if he prevails in Ukraine.

A top Polish security official said recently that Europe urgently needed sufficient strength to “deter [Russian] aggression.” Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas echoed that message this week, calling for another critical deterrent: intensifying, not just maintaining, military support for Ukraine.

The momentum behind Mr. Trump’s presidential bid has focused attention on the critical role European countries may need to play in that effort.

There are some signs that they are taking the challenge seriously.

A British official told the London-based newspaper The Times that the United Kingdom and other European NATO members are “cranking through the gears” to ensure Ukraine continues to get the arms it needs, adding that Mr. Putin “can’t be allowed to win ... just because Trump says ‘no more dollars.’”

The EU has pledged to deliver a million urgently needed artillery shells to Ukraine by March.

European countries have accounted for around half of Western support for Ukraine since the February 2022 invasion. They’ve also increased military spending. But outside of NATO, there is no effective mechanism for EU countries to plan, agree, and coordinate a joined-up defense policy.

That’s one reason the EU seems likely to fall well short of the promised number of artillery shells. The bloc needs to expand production more quickly. Besides, nearly half of all arms made in the EU are still exported abroad, to customers other than Ukraine.

There’s another problem, too. Europe at present cannot supply the amount of more advanced weaponry that Ukraine has said is essential to turning the tide against Russian forces.

Belgium’s prime minister gilded his post-Iowa warning that Europe might find itself “on its own” with an upbeat call to “embrace it, by putting Europe on a more solid footing, stronger, more sovereign, more self-reliant.”

Much the same message came from a leading businessman at this week’s annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Commenting on Ms. Lagarde’s worries about the effects of a Trump return, the vice chair of the world’s largest investment fund, Blackrock, said there might be a more positive “flip side.”

A Trump return could be “a wake-up call for Europe,” said Philipp Hildebrand. A spur for it to become more independent.

Because for the time being, he said, when it comes to defense, “Europe is just not there yet.”