In his inaugural address on Monday, Donald Trump promised a “golden age” and promised that “America’s decline” was over. He then signed 78 decrees rescinding measures taken by the Biden administration. The US will withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement and the World Health Organisation. What changes will the re-elected US president bring, and how should Europe react?
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Divide and rule
The re-elected US president is guided by the motto Divide et impera, L’Humanité warns:
“First of all, dividing the US population by pitting the rich against the poor, whites against minorities, men against women. Dividing the world, too, armed with the sword of the strongest economic power. The renegotiation of customs duties, free trade agreements, and bilateral partnerships. The US dollar promises to become more than ever the arbiter of financial capitalism. In 2024, according to the NGO Oxfam, the wealth of the world’s billionaires increased by two trillion dollars. Trump is one of them. Obsessed with business and profit, America’s alpha male wants to consolidate the rule of private monopolies – against which governments appear helpless.”
Don’t be blinded by the daily drama
What Trump won’t do in key areas is far more important than what he will do, warns former British foreign secretary William Hague in The Times:
“The Trump administration will not restrict oil and gas production, not work with the World Health Organisation (WHO), not regulate cryptocurrencies, not worry about the future safety of AI and not keep down the rapid growth of America’s debt burden as it restores large tax reductions. In each case, by not doing something it is likely to make the longer-term future less sustainable. The drama of each day will grab our attention but it is the consequences over the years that will matter most. The problem is not the rollercoaster ride; it is that the rollercoaster might end in mid-air.”
Monsters of its own making
The US is making a U-turn in global economic policy, observes Krytyka Polityczna:
“The Americans created the modern global economic order in the first place but now they are accusing other countries of causing them to suffer disadvantages due to certain aspects of this architecture. This could hardly be more hypocritical. Naturally, the modern world order also has disadvantages from the American point of view. The loss of industrial jobs is one of them – but it was the US that pushed for the liberalisation of global trade, which allowed its companies to expand while blocking the ability of companies from developing countries to develop in peace.”
No going back in the long term
In the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, literary scholar Manfred Schneider calls for a sense of calm:
“Even if the walls that Trump wants to build around the US, the tariffs and border barricades grow to the sky, the country can neither manoeuvre itself out of world trade nor out of the global movement of migrants. There is no going back in the long term, nor can there be a descent from a level of education and enlightenment that has once been achieved. Knowledge cannot be unlearned. Not only the Internet, but also reason forgets nothing.”
The four pillars of a European response
The EU’s response to Donald Trump must be based on four pillars, writes political scientist Adérito Vicente in Visão:
“Europe must strengthen its strategic autonomy, however difficult that goal may seem at the moment. The EU must accelerate the development of independent defence capabilities and reduce its technological dependence on the US. … As the US turns more and more in on itself, the EU must strengthen its trade relations with other regions. … Furthermore, it must maintain dialogue with the US administration without compromising its fundamental values. … Finally, in the face of external pressures, preserving internal cohesion will be the EU’s greatest challenge in the time to come.”
Russia not a priority for Trump
Kommersant notes that people in Russia are overestimating their importance in Trump’s world view:
“While America has practically become the main problem in Russian politics since the start of the ‘special military operation’, for Trump’s America Russia, including Ukraine, is far from being the main issue, which many in Russia cannot understand. All those who are trying to portray the rule of the new US president as a decisive game of chess with Russia are falling prey to a naïve illusion. Donald Trump has already made it clear that his administration’s main concern will not be to find a solution in Ukraine. It will be a simultaneous game on many boards and on different continents.”