Two months into his second term, President Donald Trump was accused by some politicians in the West of abandoning Washington’s longstanding allies as a result of his stance on the war in Ukraine. But one doesn’t have to look very far back in history to note that a similar act of “unfriending” of continental Europe had occurred, and wasn’t unjustified.
Unfortunately, those mild words of the Iron Lady fell on deaf ears.
Eleven years later, her tone had changed into one of disdain and spite, when in a Conservative Party conference in Blackpool she shockingly declared, “In my lifetime all the problems have come from mainland Europe, and all the solutions have come from the English-speaking nations across the world.”
Thatcher abhorred the European welfare state, criticized intransigent unionism, and loathed the power wielded by unelected Brussels bureaucrats, who had virtually forgotten NATO by the mid-1990s, even though Europe had by then grown rich. She won her battle posthumously, in 2020, via Brexit.
The United States is on a similar trajectory. Trump also spurns big government and bureaucratic multinational agencies. Like Thatcher almost 40 years ago—but much more vehemently—he has criticized other NATO countries for spending far too little on defense—a constant gripe of U.S. presidents, especially Dwight Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan.
Trump’s associates readily criticized certain European countries for abandoning basic Western values, by failing to defend free speech, abolishing secure national borders, and letting in gangsters and fanatical Jihadis who unleash terrorist attacks on innocent citizens. Trump also thinks all these have been happening in the United States.
The Russia–Ukraine war has caused rifts between Trump and other NATO members. He wants the war to end so that Washington can “pivot” to the Indo-Pacific to squarely face the “pacing threat” of communist China, which he, since his first term, has rightly regarded as America’s major adversary.
So, almost simultaneously, the two major English-speaking countries, the United States and the UK, are extricating themselves from entanglements in Europe and reaching out to Asia. Their “leaving Europe to enter Asia” is going full circle from the time when Japan’s most famous 19th century reformist, Fukuzawa Yukichi, advocated the opposite, “leaving Asia to enter Europe” (1885), under very different circumstances.
If U.S. Commodore Matthew Perry’s arrival in Tokugawa Japan in 1853, and World War II, marked the first and second historic coming of America to Asia, respectively, then the “Trump pivot” may well be the third. It could add enormously to the prosperity of Indo-Pacific Ex-China, for two reasons. First, as the U.S.–China decoupling continues, much American money leaving China will go into other Indo-Pacific economies. Second, when greater American military might, coupled with increased defense spending and capabilities in East Asian countries, is realized under Trump’s pressure, it will be deployed to contain the Chinese regime and achieve greater regional stability, and new investment money will arrive with more confidence.
But then what about Europe, which the United States and perhaps Britain are leaving behind? It will do fine, but in a previously unexpected way.
This will be the scenario: Trump 2.0 will continue to goad Europe to pony up for its own defense, necessarily at the expense of its welfare state, climate policy, and open borders, and this will damage the transatlantic relationship if it must. Trump will be much maligned in the process.
In fact, there are good signs that Europe is reacting to Trump in a healthy way; for example, the newly elected German leader has decided that Germany must spend huge amounts in upgrading its military, notwithstanding that it necessarily will have to cut welfare spending and retune its growth model in the process.
Expectedly, when Europe is strong and wholesome again, Trump will be gone from the stage and his successors will be able to mend fences with all obstacles removed. At that point, the world will still be essentially bipolar: the open society camp versus the authoritarian-or-worse camp.
There will be two main theaters where the conflict between the two camps will be played out. First is Asia, in which the United States—rid of its European baggage and in some kind of alliance with Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, and Australia—will face off against the Chinese regime. The mightiest power on Earth will try to roll back and contain the most dangerous. Next is Europe, where a reformed and repowered European Union will take on Russia. A second-rate power will try to keep a third-rate one in check. It will be a much more rational conflict configuration and manageable division of labor for the West than it is now.
