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For
Europe’s far right, Trump has become a liability
The U.S.
president’s threats over Greenland have spurred national leaders to distance
themselves from a figure they once praised.
January
22, 2026 4:00 am CET
By Marion
Solletty and Max Griera
https://www.politico.eu/article/europe-far-right-donald-trump-liability/
PARIS —
European populist champions are turning away from a U.S. president they once
openly admired.
As Donald
Trump escalates his attacks on the continent, his scorched-earth approach to
transatlantic relations is becoming a political liability — even for leaders
who previously benefited from their association with him.
For the
right-wing and far-right movements in Europe, Donald Trump’s “Make America
Great Again” movement offered validation from the other side of the Atlantic
for similar populist movements back home — until its leader started threatening
the invasion of a European territory.
While on
Wednesday Trump backtracked on his administration’s threats, saying he will not
take Greenland by force and would suspend his tariff threats, powerful
right-wing figures in the continent’s capitals and core EU institutions have
already shifted their narrative to adapt to the transatlantic hostility,
mimicking the centrist leaders they loathe and dialing up the rhetoric against
American imperialism.
“I think
we should be honest,” said Nicola Procaccini, the leader of the right-wing
European Conservatives and Reformists group in the European Parliament, who is
also Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s right-hand man in the chamber.
“When Trump is wrong, we should say he’s wrong, when he’s right, we should say
he is right.”
Jordan
Bardella, president of France’s far-right National Rally, and Nigel Farage, the
populist leader of Reform UK, condemned Trump’s escalating threats over
Greenland and his use of tariffs as coercive leverage against the very
countries they hope to govern. Both are wary of appearing too close to a figure
increasingly viewed by public opinion, including their voters, as a hostile
force.
Trump’s
aggressive push on Greenland “goes way beyond a diplomatic disagreement,”
Bardella said in the European Parliament on Tuesday, describing the U.S.
president’s tariff threats as “blackmail” and accusing him of attempting the
“vassalization” of Europe.
In the
same address he called on the EU to activate its so-called trade bazooka, also
known as the anti-coercion instrument, aligning with the position of his rival,
President Emmanuel Macron. That puts Bardella at odds with a leader to whom he
has long felt an affinity: Meloni, whose government is still advocating a
let’s-keep-calm-and-negotiate approach.
Even the
far-right Alternative for Germany, which once openly embraced support from the
Trump administration, is scrambling to recalibrate.
Wannabes
vs. incumbents
Populist
leaders in office are proceeding cautiously, well aware of the risk of
alienating a powerful but unpredictable ally.
Italy’s
Meloni, whose status as a Trump whisperer has raised her international profile,
has so far refrained from directly criticizing the U.S. president’s offensive
on Europe’s sovereignty.
As Trump
announced he would slap punitive tariffs on NATO allies that have opposed his
move on Greenland, he noticeably spared Italy, which has criticized European
troop deployments to the Arctic territory.
Similarly,
speaking from Davos, Poland’s President Karol Nawrocki, a Trump stalwart, said
the U.S. remained his country’s “very important ally.” But even he balked at
one of the U.S. president’s recent initiatives, with one of his aides
expressing concerns about the inclusion of Russian President Vladimir Putin in
the U.S.-led “Board of Peace.”
In the
European Parliament, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s troops continue to
seek close ties with Trump and are downplaying the annexation threats, arguing
that Greenland is an issue solely between Denmark and the United States.
“With
President Donald Trump comes peace,” Orbán said three days ago on X.
By
contrast, far-right figures who still are aiming for higher office have
adjusted their rhetoric.
In
France, the National Rally has always been cautious in its approach to Trump,
trying to maintain a healthy distance. But Bardella himself had flattering
words for the U.S. president as recently as last month, when he said in a BBC
interview that Trump was an example of the “wind of freedom, of national pride
blowing all over Western democracies.”
In the
same interview, Bardella gave a hat tip to Trump’s successes at home and
“welcomed with a certain goodwill” the moral support offered to nationalist
European parties in Trump’s National Security Strategy, a bombshell policy
paper widely received as another nail in the coffin of the traditional world
order.
End of a
bromance
In the
U.K., Farage can claim to be a longtime friend of Trump, having campaigned for
him during his 2016 presidential run and later being welcomed to Trump Tower as
his personal guest.
But this
week the populist leader opened up clear blue water between himself and the
U.S. president by saying Trump’s Greenland threats represent the “biggest
fracture” in the transatlantic relationship since the Suez crisis of 1956.
The
Reform leader, who is scenting real power ahead of the next general election,
is well known for being attuned to public opinion — which remains pretty
hostile toward the U.S. president.
Trump was
unpopular in Europe even before the Greenland offensive, including among the
supporters of right-wing populist parties he sees as allies, according to a
POLITICO Poll in partnership with Public First conducted in November.
Farage
supporters were the exception, but even so, only 50 percent of Reform-aligned
respondents had favorable views of Trump.
Public
distance vs. private embrace
France’s
Marine Le Pen has long warned her troops against embracing Trump too loudly.
While the
American president is ideologically close to her National Rally on some
subjects, first among them migration, Trump’s interference in domestic politics
has ruffled the far-right veteran’s feathers.
After
U.S. Vice President JD Vance’s fiery speech at the Munich Security Conference
last year, where he criticized longstanding policies by centrist parties
against collaboration with the far right, she warned her troops against
cheering the apparent win for their camp.
Still,
the party’s leading figures have also looked at Trump for inspiration and
sought to emulate some of his movement’s successes.
Last
September, her former partner and National Rally Vice President Louis Aliot,
who traveled to the U.S. for Trump’s inauguration, gave a passionate speech on
democracy and freedom of speech at the party’s back-to-school meeting in
Bordeaux, paying tribute to slain U.S. conservative influencer Charlie Kirk — a
name virtually no one in France’s heartland had heard of before his
assassination. He elicited roars from the crowd.
Now,
far-right politicians may legitimately fear that invoking Trump will earn them
boos instead of claps.
Esther
Webber contributed reporting from London. Ketrin Jochecová contributed
reporting from Brussels.
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