President
Trump and the future of the West
If
the Republican wins November’s election, what happens to US
relations with its traditional allies?
By
Nicholas Vinocur
8/8/16, 5:30 AM CET
It was a strange day
for Estonia when the tiny Baltic nation became the focus of intense
debate in the U.S. presidential campaign.
At issue: Would the
United States honor its NATO obligation to defend Estonia in the
event of an attack by Russia? Donald Trump, who has repeatedly
criticized small NATO members for “taking advantage” of the
United States, hedged his answer. “Have they fulfilled their
obligations to us?” he told the New York Times. “If they fulfill
their obligations to us, the answer is yes.”
Hours later, Trump
backer Newt Gingrich doubled down on the Republican candidate’s
skepticism toward NATO duties, saying: “Estonia is in the suburbs
of [the Russian city of] St. Petersburg … I’m not sure I would
risk nuclear war over the suburbs of St. Petersburg.”
For Estonians, and
all other NATO members in the region, that was a chilling message.
“All of a sudden the issue closest to our skin — the defense of
Estonia, of all things — becomes an issue in this campaign,” Jüri
Luik, former Estonian ambassador to Russia, said. “It’s a totally
unexpected development, and a gloomy situation for all of Eastern
Europe.”
“NATO’s
deterrent power depends in large part on the U.S. president’s
position. If he is unsure … that weakens the deterrent immensely.”
End of the West?
Beyond regional
security, the Estonian episode raised a bigger, more troubling
question for Europeans watching the U.S. presidential campaign: If
Trump wins, will he feel any obligation to uphold his country’s
historical role as defender and guarantor of the West?
So far, the answer
seems to be probably not.
Since the end of
World War II, no other U.S. presidential nominee has questioned the
country’s prerogatives as a global superpower so openly, or so
insistently, or with so little regard for historical ties, as Trump.
Six months ago,
European leaders felt free to dismiss his criticism of NATO, or
insults to EU countries, as the ravings of a candidate who had no
chance of winning the Republican party nomination, much less the
presidency.
Not anymore. As
Trump secured the Republican nomination, and his campaign barreled
from one shock statement to another, he revealed details of a foreign
policy agenda that was far more worrying for U.S. allies than
anything he had said in the primary.
First there was his
questioning of NATO, which he recently called “obsolete.”
Dismissing the principle of automatic mutual aid, which underpins the
alliance, Trump argued that small countries were “taking advantage”
of the United States by not paying enough into the alliance’s
coffers.
Countries like
Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania needed to pay in order to play, he
said.
“At this stage,
he’s [Trump] an inch away from saying ‘let’s drop the whole
idea and abandon NATO,'” said an EU diplomat who asked not to be
named. “I hardly dare to imagine what that world [without NATO]
would resemble.”
The debate about
burden-sharing inside of NATO is a mere footnote in Trump’s
“America first” foreign policy doctrine. “Europeans need to
understand that the responsibility of defending Western civilization
will be theirs if Trump is elected,” said Nicholas Dungan, a senior
fellow at the Atlantic Council.
Behind it looms what
several sources described as a deep-seated ambivalence toward the
United States’ international commitments and a suspicious,
hectoring attitude toward the rest of the West. According to Trump,
Brussels is a “hellhole,” Germany is a “total mess” and
France “just isn’t what it was.”
France, Belgium and
Germany have all suffered terrorist attacks over the past year. But
instead of offering sympathy to allied nations, Trump served up a ban
on letting citizens of terror-struck countries into the U.S.
“The excesses make
your stomach turn,” French President François Hollande told
journalists this week, when asked to react to Trump’s recent
statements.
For Russia, with
love
In an interview with
ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, the Republican nominee called for
“better relations” with Moscow, urging the United States to
accept the Russian annexation of Crimea, which Washington and
Brussels both consider a violation of international law.
He also denied that
Russian-backed rebels or proxies were in Ukraine, despite ongoing
fighting in the country’s Donbas region that has claimed hundreds
of lives.
With minor
variations, such statements echo the pro-Russian positions of the
European far-right. On Russia, Trump lines up perfectly with Marine
Le Pen, the head of France’s National Front; former UKIP leader
Nigel Farage; Frauke Petry of Germany’s AfD; Beppe Grillo, leader
of Italy’s 5Star movement, and other populist groups in Europe.
And in some ways,
Trump has gone further in courting Russian President Vladimir Putin.
In a quip that
jolted European politicians, he told a rally that Russia should help
to recover some 30,000 emails purportedly deleted from his Democratic
rival Hillary Clinton’s personal accounts. Coming after reports
that Russian state-backed hackers had broken into the Democratic
National Committee’s email server, Trump’s comment came across as
nothing less than an invitation to Russia to spy on the United
States.
“If Donald Trump
was to end up as President of the United States, I think we had
better head for the bunkers,” tweeted Carl Bildt, Sweden’s
outspoken former foreign minister.
Putin appeasement
risk
Trump’s anti-West
bent and praise for Putin is raising concerns about the independence
of his campaign. Paul Manafort, his campaign manager, previously
worked as a political consultant to the pro-Russian government of
former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich.
The role would have
put him in direct contact with Putinists, and likely involved
pitching the same lines about Crimea and Ukraine that Trump is now
putting forth in interviews. While Trump was forced to admit, after
an explicit denial from Putin, that he had ever met or even spoken to
the Russian leader, his call on Russia to spy on Clinton implied a
level of coziness that raised eyebrows among EU security analysts.
“If Trump is
elected, not everything will fall apart from one day to the next,
thank God,” said Camille Grand, head of the Foundation for
Strategic Research, an independent think tank in France. “The real
problem is what happens during the first crisis with Putin, under a
president Trump?”
“Putin could be
tempted to test [Trump’s] commitments on day one of his presidency.
How would he react? Would Trump be able to confront Putin, or what he
be advised against it?”
“What’s sure is
that, if the United States gives up on being a last resort in Europe,
we enter a different world.”
One last hope
In coming months,
European elites will scrutinize U.S. election polls, hoping that
Clinton maintains her current edge. Many officials remain attached to
the idea that Trump cannot win, partly due to Clinton’s stronger
appeal among minority and women voters; partly because the
alternative is too difficult to comprehend.
But, as Britain’s
surprise vote to leave the European Union showed, polls can be wrong.
If Trump does win in
November, others cling to one final hope: that he was not being
serious on the campaign trail.
“With Trump, we’re
not dealing with policy; we’re not dealing with foreign policy,”
said Dungan. “We don’t have to characterize what he says in such
professional terms.”
For the rest of the
West, that’s scant hope.
.webp)
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