Trump’s statements about Greenland, Canada, Panama and Mexico, as well as Musk’s unstoppable political activity, now celebrating Meloni, now supporting the German extreme right, have been like a slap in the face for naive European public opinion. Suddenly, we understood that things were serious. The world we knew is dying.
The times ahead will remind us of what perhaps recent generations had forgotten, that is: that the United States won the First and Second World Wars, and that it perceives Europe as a clientelistic zone. That Germany, the main economic force of the EU, is still today a country militarily occupied by the US; that Russia, after a few years of self-destruction and lack of control, abandoned to its fate by NATO, has regained the reins of its imperial destiny; and that China has become very strong, but, despite the forecasts of the American strategy, it has not evolved in a liberal sense, but rather is developing a colossal economic influence throughout the world with its soft empire (investments, infrastructure) and its immutable regime.
It is not just a problem of forms, it is the law of the strongest as the only argument
From the fall of the Berlin Wall (1989) to the flight from Afghanistan (2021), the United States has enjoyed omnipotent power, only contested by Islamic terrorism. But, contrary to what it might seem, imperial power wears out and impoverishes. The bill to control the world is gigantic, and a significant part of the American population, punished by deindustrialization, is abandoned. Hence the resentment of Trump’s most genuine voter, as well as the isolationist desire and desire for an “America for Americans.” Hence also the popular harmony with the insolent and imperious tone that Trump uses with neighboring or allied countries. Crude, intemperate language: intervene in the Arctic route (in which Russia has an immense advantage) and guarantee control of the Panama Canal, threatened by Chinese investments.
Trump’s harmony with the average American is better understood if we take into account the discrediting of the mannered and technocratic language of politics and journalism (a phenomenon that occurs throughout the West). Trump is liked because he talks about American interests like a businessman defending his company and haggling with his rivals from a position of attack. As Enric Juliana explained, we do not know how Trump will carry out the annexation of Greenland and the other territories or countries mentioned. I might even try it. But the simple fact of using them in his story already reveals a tremendously significant change: it is not just a problem of forms, it is the return of the law of the strongest as the only geopolitical argument.
Trump wants to look like Putin. We will see if the American liberal system allows itself to be unbuttoned. As for the world, it will have no choice but to face this disruptive change. Europe, in particular, will face Herculean challenges. For the moment, it has reacted fearfully and tardily to Trump’s desire to gobble up Greenland, which would imply drastically reducing the EU’s geostrategic limits. It is in moments of crisis that the artificial becomes evident. The EU is very fragile. The two great founding countries, Germany and France, have entered a championship crisis. Poland, emerging and demographically important, is one of the most loyal military partners of the Americans. A strong internal current (hegemonic in Hungary and Italy) goes out of its way to connect with Trumpism.
This will also be the temptation of Spain, more divided than Italy. Madrid wants to be the Paris of Spain and the London of Latin America. With Sánchez very alone, inside and outside, Aznarism (or Ayusism) will try to take advantage of the situation to reinforce Madrid’s Miami. Helpless and fractured, with no one to defend it, the EU is going to have a very bad time. Their only hope is that the divergences between the two sectors of Trumpism will explode soon, since only opportunism explains why visions as antagonistic as MAGA’s (internal withdrawal) and Musk’s (expanding globalism to the Moon and Mars) travel together. . In the game that begins, Europe does not have a single good card. Those who wanted to domesticate or dismantle it are in luck.
Source: www.lavanguardia.com
