It is not hard to imagine the atmosphere as dozens of European leaders gathered in Budapest yesterday, with Donald Trump’s stunning victory foremost on their minds.
There would have been consternation, apprehension and fear.
Trump’s relationship with Europe during his first term was hardly warm. With the notable exception of the summit’s host, Hungary’s Right-wing nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban, most of them would have preferred Kamala Harris to have won.
The Donald’s return to power brings the prospect of tariffs on European exports to the United States, question marks over the US commitment to the Nato military alliance and – perhaps above all, in European leaders’ minds – deep uncertainty over US backing for Ukraine.
Little wonder many at the European Political Community summit urged Trump to avoid trade wars, keep up support for Ukraine and refrain from unsettling the global order.
A Ukrainian soldier fires towards Russian troops outside Bakhmut
It is as if they expect him to unleash some sort of worldwide anarchy, sparking Armageddon and conflagration with reckless protectionism and the appeasement of ‘strong-men’ despots such as President Putin and China’s Xi Jinping.
But the fact is that, far from being the arsonist who’ll set the world ablaze, Donald Trump is actually the fireman who is likely to stop the brush fires from running out of control.
Foreign policy wasn’t high up the list of voter concerns in the US this year: the economy, immigration and abortion were. But everyone who voted for Trump, including the first-timers, knows that his administration means a totally different approach overseas.
After the past four years, Trump’s first term looks like a lost age of calm and stability. For the first time in decades, the US launched no new wars following his election in 2016.
In contrast, the Biden-Harris years have taken us to the brink of a world war.
In all the three main theatres of conflict that America is stretched across – Ukraine, the Middle East and East Asia – Biden’s attempts to contain the fires failed.
In Ukraine, America is now running a proxy war against Russia costing billions – with no end in sight.
In the Middle East, the Democrats’ failure to enforce sanctions allowed billions of dollars to flow into Iran, the world’s biggest sponsor of terrorism, freeing up cash for their blood-soaked clients Hamas and Hezbollah – leading to the October 7 massacre last year and the following conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon.
In Asia, tensions with China haven’t run so high since the Korean War of the 1950s. Recent months have seen a record number of Chinese incursions into Taiwanese airspace.
Worse, the theatres are now linking up. There are North Korean troops on the Russia-Ukraine border. Iran is supplying drones and weaponry to Russia. Xi Jinping rolled out the red carpet with a band playing Red Army songs on Putin’s state visit to China in May this year.
Now Trump will have to deal with all these crises facing the West. He might have a negotiable relationship with the truth, but his team are foreign policy realists – and they insist the US military lacks the capacity to defend Europe at the same time as facing down China and policing the Persian Gulf.
Trump’s relationship with Europe during his first term was hardly warm, writes Dominic Green
America cannot continue the necessary weapon production to keep up with demand from Ukraine and Israel as well as prepare for any war with China. Trump’s team are planning to revive the industrial base for armaments, but that will take years, at least in peacetime.
The team’s first priority will therefore be to clear the decks for a prolonged Cold War with China. That means a quick end to the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East.
America’s friends will be disappointed by the trade-offs, but many Americans will be pleased. The President-elect will no longer allow America to be taken for granted – his team are appalled that Europe is failing to fund defence sufficiently and have threatened to put Nato on ice.
And if we take the three theatres in turn, and examine how different Trump’s approach will differ from Biden’s, we can see that peace, rather than conflict, is what he is searching for.
Where Ukraine is concerned, a peace deal is likely to be an imperial carve-up, which could come with tough terms.
In September, Trump said: ‘I would get [Putin] into a room. I’d get Zelensky into a room. Then I’d bring them together. And I’d have a deal worked out.’
He is believed to be considering a strategy that would involve US military aid being conditional on Ukraine entering peace talks with Russia, while at the same time threatening Moscow that the US would increase funding to Kyiv if Putin refused to come to the negotiation table.
The heroic Ukrainian people will pay the price in the loss of territory and independence, and if Trump leaves a rump Ukraine that is too weak to defend itself, this will invite further aggression from Putin. Will Nato countries step up, as Trump demands? Will he withdraw all aid? Will Ukraine be left with its future uncertain as its eastern regions disappear into a twilight of Russian control?
We shall see. But if Trump pulls it off, the planet will be a more stable place – although not necessarily a kinder one – and the quagmire of the steppes will end.
In the Middle East, Trump confounded conventional wisdom during his first term and achieved the impossible by reconciling Israel and four Arab states including Saudi Arabia in a planned deal known as the Abraham Accords.
October 7 and the Iranian proxy campaign were launched to forestall that peace deal which was about to be signed. Trump’s second term could quickly bring it back – and transform the Middle East.
The Iranian regime threatened to assassinate him this year. Anyone would take that personally, and Trump enjoys a grudge. Expect him to put Iran on notice, restore sanctions, and back Israel if it strikes Iran’s nuclear programme. He might even strike Iran directly.
In return for protecting Israel, Trump will expect its PM Benjamin Netanyahu to play ball on a deal with the Palestinians, and avoid an open-ended war with Hezbollah that collapses the failed state of Lebanon. Netanyahu will object, but he needs exit strategies from both wars. He will compromise in the hope that a renewed Israeli-Saudi peace accord is no mirage.
With Ukraine and the Middle East stabilised in his eyes, Trump will then pivot to Asia.
Tariffs and a trade war will please his Republican base, but Trump likes business, not battles. He knows that every time America’s generals ‘war-game’ a confrontation with China over Taiwan, America loses. Trump hates to be a loser.
Yet there is no winning with China, no paradigm-shifting strategy. This leaves Trump with few choices. He will deepen cooperation with India. He will continue to press American companies to move their operations out of China and into friendlier Asian states such as Vietnam. He will hope that American rearmament will dissuade Xi Jinping from any sudden moves on Taiwan, and that his luck holds as he plays for time.
After the Biden-Harris disaster, Trump starts his second term in a much tougher world than his first. Trump, the great destabiliser, will aim for a new Cold Peace with China. This would not be a victory. Containment and stability, however, would be a success and the result would be a safer place for us all.
Dominic Green is a Wall Street Journal contributor, a Washington Examiner columnist and a fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute.
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