US President Joe Biden (right) meets with president-elect Donald Trump at the Oval Office in the White House, on November 13, in Washington, DC. [Evan Vucci/AP]
Never since the founding of NATO on April 4, 1949, has the election of an American president caused so much uncertainty among Washington’s European partners about how to act and cooperate with the new leader of the free world. This is exactly what is happening today after the sweeping victory of Donald Trump.
Of course, Europeans will quickly adapt to the new state of affairs and adopt Trump’s choices when they are announced after his inauguration. So, let’s be patient, there are only 50 days left until then.
It would be desirable, of course, if some people realized that the European Union and the United States do not constitute an indivisible organic unity, that Washington’s role is hegemonic and that outside the American “umbrella” there is no “other world” to which Europe can take refuge. We saw it in Shakespeare’s “Coriolanus;” there is no need to experience it.
Somewhere between 1912-13, the American poet, essayist and literary critic Ezra Pound said, in reference to the situation in the United States, that everything was fluid and conditions were constantly changing, that no institution or business relationship could remain stable in a place whose character changes every decade. Referring to the inhabitants of this large country, he commented that nomads formed the population of America and that the primary Anglo-Saxon migratory element was submerged to the point of disappearance in the pool of tribes, which subsequently migrated. These remarks by one of the most influential poets of the last century are still valid today.
It goes without saying that Europe was not unaffected by the emergence of anti-monarchical, republican America, where for the first time an attempt was made to create a new order of political affairs and social relations based on the principles of the Enlightenment.
The model for the creation of a European Union is possibly derived from the United States. And it is perhaps no coincidence that during World War II, French politician Jean Monnet – who was also one of the founding fathers of the European Union – was in Washington when he conceived the idea of a Union of Europe, which would rule out a new European war, writes former British premier Boris Johnson in his memoirs.
The major difference, however, is that the US is a hegemonic power that by definition takes into account broader parameters. Outgoing President Joe Biden raised the wall on Europe’s energy and economic relations with Russia. Trump, who will succeed him in the presidency, has as his declared goal to stop China’s further economic expansion, with all that this will mean for the economies of European states.
And because tension between the West and Vladimir Putin’s Russia is escalating, without even ruling out the use of nuclear weapons, the insecurity of European leaders has hit a new high. Inevitably, therefore, the Union will become a monitor of American choices. Some have already begun to denounce our leaders for servitude. But name-calling is always easy.