Four years ago, NATO Headquarters closely watched the United States election, which Donald Trump ended up losing to Joe Biden.
Because during his four years in office, Trump, who is known for his unpredictability, has repeatedly ignored Europeans, abandoned his allies in Syria and Iraq and contributed to the chaos in Afghanistan that led to the rise of the Taliban, writes Helga Schmidt from ARD.
Europe is not an ally for Trump, on the contrary
„He has never accepted the Europeans as allies, but as dark figures who do not wish America anything good,", summarized Jean-Claude Juncker in October 2020. As president of the European Commission, he was still one of the few politicians who somehow managed to get along with the forty-fifth president of the United States. But this does not mean that Juncker gives flattering assessments of Trump's mandate: “He constantly repeated, even during meetings, that the European Union was invented to minimize American influence in the world," the Luxembourg politician told ARD .
Also at the opening of the new Headquarters in Brussels in 2017, Trump criticized NATO: “In the last eight years, the United States has spent more on defense than all the other NATO countries combined," he told the government officials gathered there and heads of government. This is not fair to American taxpayers, the US president added at the time. “23 out of all 28 member states do not pay what they owe for defense", Trump stressed.
On his inauguration as Secretary General of the Alliance, Mark Rutte surprised with words of praise for Trump: “Thanks to Donald Trump, we have increased our defense spending," said the former Dutch Prime Minister. The critical attitude towards China was also adopted by many.
NATO tries to prepare for a “Trump 2.0" scenario
Rutte's words were probably addressed to Trump himself, who has every chance of being re-elected on November 5. And the nightmare for NATO to begin again. This time, however, the Alliance clearly wants to be prepared. That is why in recent weeks the term “resistant to Trump" has been increasingly used. - i.e. that the defense alliance is so prepared that it does not fall into an existential crisis if the Republican is re-elected. Trump himself has already sent quite confusing messages - at the beginning of his campaign he stated that the US should only help countries that “pay their bills" and leave the rest to Putin.
„The idea that NATO can become ``Trump-proof'' is illusory,'' says Marco Overhaus from the Berlin-based Foundation for Science and Politics. Preparing for the extreme case where Trump pulls the US out of NATO and pulls large numbers of US troops out of Europe is almost unthinkable. “The structure of the transatlantic relationship, especially in the area of defense policy, is completely unbalanced," Overhouse says. He explains that 75% of the burden falls on the US and only 25% on the Europeans.
Allies can become competitors
It would be a good turn of events for NATO if Kamala Harris had four years to address this imbalance. From a military point of view, the Europeans need to acquire key skills for which they are currently very dependent on the US - for example, in air and missile defense, as well as commanding large armies. The significance of American nuclear weapons deployed in Europe is a completely different topic.
The uncertainty also has political dimensions, should Washington distance itself. Europe will have to rethink its past traditions of collective decision-making, which would mean preparing America to use its weight as a great power against the will of the Europeans, writes Helga Schmidt from ARD.
Author: Helga Schmidt (ARD)