A spectre is haunting Europe – the spectre of Donald Trump. In London, Paris, Berlin and every other significant European capital, bar Moscow, the horror sequel no one sane wants to see is Trump – The Return: “No more Mr Nice Guy”.
Having spent the last three years being much too nonchalant about the threat of him recapturing the White House, British politicians and their counterparts elsewhere in Europe can no longer deny to themselves that a Trump second coming is terrifyingly possible. The shock is the sharper for having been preceded by so much complacency. His defeat by Joe Biden in 2020 was greeted with a huge exhalation of relief that the United States was back under the leadership of an Atlanticist who believed in the US’s traditional alliances with other democracies and didn’t deny the existence of the climate crisis. “Welcome back America!” whooped the mayor of Paris in a typically euphoric reaction. It didn’t occur to enough people in Europe’s leadership that all Biden’s victory promised was a four-year breather, not a guarantee that we would never see Trumpism empowered again. Time that might have been spent preparing for that possibility by making the UK and the rest of Europe less dependent on America for the security of our continent has been woefully wasted.
What seemed unimaginable to most Europeans back in 2020 is now all too conceivable. He’s clocked up back-to-back victories in the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary. No one has previously won both and failed to become the Republican nominee for the presidency. Nikki Haley, the last rival candidate standing, managed a decent showing as runner-up in New Hampshire, but the bulk of her support came from independent voters, and many other states don’t give them a say. Haley next goes head to head with Trump in the South Carolina primary at the end of February where, though she was twice elected governor of the state, the polls have her limping a long way behind. The working assumption has to be that the election will be a Biden v Trump rematch. Biden is behind in the latest national polls and in key battleground states.
People who are trying to stay optimistic will say that it is not nailed on that Trump will return to the White House. This is true. The criminal trials he faces, including for attempting a coup by inciting a violent insurrection against Congress, may start to worry more American voters about the menace he poses to their democracy. It may sink in more deeply that they could have a convicted felon on the ballot to be their next commander-in-chief and head of state. Biden’s approval ratings may turn for the better as he cranks up his campaign for re-election and the moment of choice comes closer. An act of god may intervene. Cross your fingers and hope for the best by all means. But don’t mistake that for a strategy to prepare for Trump 2.0.
It is very likely that this will be the first time since 1992 that the US and the UK hold general elections in the same year. If Rishi Sunak calls ours for November, they will even be in the same month. In its parochial way, a lot of Westminster is obsessed only with how one contest may influence the other. The Maga branch of the Tory party, whose precinct captains are Boris Johnson and Liz Truss, has been waving flags for Trump. The prime minister has maintained a diplomatic silence. This suggests he grasps that his party’s already dismal prospects won’t be enhanced by hugging close to a figure who is toxic to the great majority of British voters. Sir Keir Starmer will be wary of saying anything to provoke Trump, but in the past he hasn’t disguised his preference for a Biden victory, and I am told the Labour leader is frustrated that he has yet to be invited to call on the White House. A pairing of Trump and Starmer would see America and Britain run by two men whose temperaments, styles, ethics and world views could scarcely be more contrasting. Undrama Starmer is the antithesis of the noxious, corrupt and anti-democratic American demagogue.
Some diplomats will try to reassure us that the “special relationship” is robust enough to transcend whichever particular personalities happen to occupy Number 10 and the White House in any given period. That kind of shrugging is far too insouciant about the perils posed to the UK by another Trump presidency. People close to the prime minister and within the Labour leader’s circle claim they would find a way to “handle” Trump and “make it work”. That is stupendously naive and conceited. It sounds like someone who has only ever had a pet rabbit telling you they know how to control an American bully XL.
British politicians couldn’t dissuade Trump from shredding US commitments to combat the climate crisis when he was in office and they will fail again if he gets another chance. He will be an aggressive protectionist, which will be bad for a country such as the UK that is dependent for a lot of its prosperity on free trade. The greatest source of alarm is what a second term of Trump would mean for the foundations of our security. An unbreakable bond with Washington has been the backbone of British foreign policy under Conservative and Labour governments since the Second World War. Its core belief is that democracies must stand up for each other and its clearest manifestation is the commitment to collective defence enshrined in Nato. The organisation’s first secretary general, a Brit, memorably remarked that the purpose of the alliance was to keep the Americans in Europe and the Russians out.
We know what Trump thinks of the mutual defence treaty. “I don’t give a shit about Nato,” he yelled at John Bolton when the latter was his national security adviser. There were enough adults in the room when he was last in the White House to constrain him from giving full expression to all of his isolationist, nativist, alliance-disdaining, Europe-despising, autocrat-admiring impulses. Second time around, the fear that most shivers the spines of officials in London and elsewhere in Europe is that “Trump unbound” would shatter Nato.
Even if he didn’t go so far as to formally abandon the alliance, he can eviscerate its value as a deterrent against aggressors by casting severe doubt, as he already is, about whether America would come to the defence of Europe.
The most immediate consequences would be felt by the embattled Ukrainians. If you want a glimpse of how dark the future could be, note that Trump and his allies on Capitol Hill have been trying to derail talks to unblock a tranche of critically needed US aid to Ukraine. At the same time, a package of further EU assistance is being prevented by Hungary’s mini-me Trump, Viktor Orbán.
Trump’s claim that he could strike a deal with Vladimir Putin to end the war “in 24 hours” is as “very dangerous” as Volodymyr Zelenskiy says it is. Since Putin is not going to make a voluntary retreat from the land he has stolen, this can only imply that Trump would try to coerce Ukraine into accepting some kind of grisly deal that left huge swathes of its territory in Russian hands. That would be catastrophic for European security and the reputation of its democracies while emboldening dictators the world over to think that the west will stand idly by while they gobble up the land and freedom of smaller neighbours.
The destruction of the trans-Atlantic bridge would further underline the strategic folly of Brexit. European leaders would look supremely foolish for failing to fulfil the pledges they made to improve military capabilities in the wake of Russia’s brutal invasion. There would be a big incentive on both sides to improve UK-EU relations and hurry efforts to agree a pan-European security pact. Even if the worst doesn’t happen this time, there’s no saying that America won’t elect a Trump-like figure in the future. It is beyond time that Europe stopped leaving so much of the responsibility for its defence to America and devoted the necessary resources to ensuring the security of its own continent.
And if the worst does happen, if he recaptures the White House, I’d be very wary of anyone who tells you not to lose too much sleep over it. We should be under no illusions that the so-called “special relationship” will protect Britain from the Trump tempest. He will be a clear and present danger to the UK’s vital interests in a way no previous US president has ever been.
• Andrew Rawnsley is the Chief Political Commentator of the Observer
