By Daniel DePetris
We are still fifteen months away from the 2024 U.S. presidential election, but much of the world is already busy trying to decipher the results. With a second Donald Trump presidency in the realm of possibility, governments around the world are holding strategy sessions and informal conversations about how such an event would change U.S. foreign policy, impact their relationships with the United States and, just as importantly, what they can do to mitigate whatever shock to the system that may ensue.
For Europe specifically, Trump wasn’t just a shock – it was a lightning bolt to the skull. For a continent accustomed to getting what it wanted from Washington, enjoying relatively harmonious trade ties and complacently living behind the wall of U.S. military protection, Trump’s worldview was almost alien. Here was a man who simply didn’t buy into the notion of the so-called transatlantic relationship. Alliances most American politicians viewed as sacred were seen by Trump as a rip off. Why, he constantly asked, was the U.S. providing Europe with protection when it wasn’t pulling its weight and allowing its defense budgets to wither?
This piece was originally published in Spectator on August 30, 2023. Read more HERE.