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The consequences of Trump’s ignorant overreaches are beginning to be felt, and nowhere more than in his pathetic poodling to Putin. Trump may finally get his goal of Europe spending more on defense—but in defense against him. As a supporter of anti-foreign nationalists everywhere, the nationalism that Trump is fomenting is anti-American, at least as long as America is personified by himself. Trump has even kindled nationalism on the part of the docile Canadians.
Yesterday, Friedrich Merz’s mainstream Christian Democrats (CDU) won the German election. To widespread relief, the CDU and the Social Democrats (SPD) will together have enough seats in parliament (328 out of 630) to form a stable two-party coalition, of the sort that has governed Germany for almost half of the postwar era. The biggest surprise of the evening was that Germany’s left party, Die Linke, surged to almost 9 percent of the vote and will have 64 seats. The CDU and the SPD don’t agree on much, but they agree on containing Putin—and containing Trump. Geopolitically, Europe has every reason to unite against a Putin-Trump entente. Putin has designs not just on Ukraine, but on most of the former Soviet empire, beginning with the Baltics.
In the upending of the traditional postwar balance of power politics, Europe may well end up providing much of the military support that Ukraine needs to defend itself. Economically, Trump’s insane threat of a trade war against the EU is also backfiring. At a time when the EU has been fragmented and demoralized, Trump is an unintended tonic for European unity and solidarity.
Today, on the third anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, European foreign ministers approved a fresh package of sanctions on Russia, targeting energy, trade, transport, infrastructure, and financial services.
