WHAT EUROPE FEARS https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2024/06/nato-trump-europe-allies/678533/ American allies see a second Trump term as all but inevitable. “The anxiety is massive.” By McKay Coppins June 3 , 20024
The Germans are bracing for Trump’s return in other ways. Inside the foreign ministry, officials have mapped out a range of policy areas likely to be destabilized by his reelection—NATO, Ukraine, tariffs, climate change—and are writing detailed proposals for how to deal with the fallout, multiple people told me. Can Trump’s moods be predicted? Who are his confidants, and how can the government get close to them?
The Germans have a contingency plan for President Joe Biden’s reelection too, but few seem to think they’ll need it.
Many of the Poles I met were especially perplexed by one recent display of U.S. political dysfunction: the struggle to pass a military-aid package for Ukraine earlier this year. Polls showed that a majority of Americans supported the funding. Reporting suggested that most members of Congress favored it too. But somehow, because Trump opposed it, a minority of Republicans in the House had succeeded in holding up the bill for months while Ukraine was forced to ration bullets and let Russian missiles level buildings.
Now Europeans are bracing for an America that behaves like any other transactional superpower. Several officials expressed fears that Trump would turn America’s NATO membership into a kind of protection racket, threatening to abandon Europe unless this ally offers better trade terms, or that ally helps investigate a political enemy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWQMcSwAJ8U&t=595s David Pakman