What would 2024 look like with Trump back in the Oval Office for Europeans?
Should Western elites and even NATO itself be afraid of Donald Trump returning to the White House in 2024? It’s an entirely valid question given that the elites’ own ‘news’ website in Brussels – Politico – penned a piece recently which argued not only should they be bothered, but they should also prepare themselves for it right now.
Trump’s return as U.S. president is looking more and more inevitable by the day, driven by the nefarious meddling of the Biden administration and its determination to put him into jail, where they, erroneously, think his bid for the White House ends.
Even the most obscure French MP which Politico wheeled out to endorse its article accepts this, so what would 2024 look like with Trump back in the Oval Office for Europeans?
The short answer is an unpleasant one.
Trump will almost certainly believe that he has learned his lessons the first time around and that his rants about NATO and EU countries having a free ticket to defending the West against Russian aggression were profoundly on the money, given what has happened in Ukraine. His policies towards the EU bloc are likely to be much more divisive the second time around as he will not only insist on a new deal for EU-NATO countries in the Ukraine war itself but will go further to use his natural allies in the EU – Poland and Hungary – to beat the back of the Brussels elite and wreck its plans on all its delusional pseudo hegemony. It’s unlikely that he will pull the U.S. out of NATO as John Bolton recently predicted but a new hardball regime will certainly be on the cards which may well relieve him of the task of winding down the Ukraine war directly rather than just saying to the Europeans “if you want to pay for it yourself, by my guess, but we’ve paid enough”.
This may well send shivers down the spines of many EU leaders. And it might even get him impeached. But it’s Trump. He won’t mind that at all. The point is that the old cliché about Biden being the grown-up who “restored” the transatlantic alliance is just that. A cliché. In reality, Biden royally buggered the UK and EU countries by masterminding the meltdown of their economies while U.S. firms cashed in, not only with new tax breaks aimed at eco-friendly firms but also simply by letting the Europeans oversubscribe themselves to a war which they can never possibly have the means to end. So much for Biden’s “America is back, diplomacy is back” soundbite which was quoted in the early days of his days in office. The harsh reality is that Biden’s view of old Europe was very much from a colonial perspective. They have to pay for their dreams if Uncle Sam is going to make them true.
So Trump now will come back with the mockery of Europe’s dirt cheap defense arrangement which, in reality, wasn’t cheap at all.
He will also pull out of the Paris Climate Change Accords pissing off Macron no end as well as give encouragement to the Israelis that their ideas of striking Iran are not completely bonkers (which of course they are).
But it’s really what Trump has in store for America on its own soil which EU governments should worry about more.
He will invest more in fossil fuels, undo a lot of Biden’s environmental initiatives, come down hard on wokeism and immigration, and impose more tariffs on America’s competitors – both China and the EU – to help American business.
Yet his second term in office, will not only be about focussing on humiliating Biden with such score-settling, domestically or around the world.
It will also be about fighting even harder to keep America in the game both with international trade and also its waning dollar economy.
Trump will have to face a new threat to America that comes as a direct result of Biden’s war – and let’s not forget his corrupt deals – in Ukraine. The emergence of BRICS which will have five new members this year alone and is already taking full control of oil prices with its influence via OPEC Plus. Trump will, in a nutshell, be fighting a new front as a new world order has emerged to challenge U.S. hegemony – or what’s left of it – head-on, which means much more than simply dumping the dollar as a reserve currency. BRICS will have its own currency, its own clearing system, and at some point, probably, its own defense pact.
The Donald is going to have a lot on his plate, leaving most EU leaders wondering whether it is better for them that Trump ill-informed and belligerent is better than overwhelmed and panicky in the wake of a new relationship between America and the few partners it has left in the world.
via zerohedge