In the face of Trump II, Europe must cast off its bridgehead status, diversify trade and source energy in a competitive manner once again. If there is no turning away from the vassal relationship, Europe’s further social and economic decline appears to be unstoppable, writes Sevim Dagdelen
The objective of US presidents has always been to destroy the economic relations between Germany and Russia and Europe and Russia – because these relations endangered the mere bridgehead function of the continent for the United States.
Joe Biden’s presidency ended ignominiously. In the end, the Democrat in the White House did exactly what he had always accused his opponent Donald
Trump of wanting to do. Biden pardoned his criminal son Hunter before pardoning the rest of his family – allegedly to protect them from future criminal prosecution. Just as Biden trampled the rule of law underfoot, the US oligarchs became the decisive factor in US politics during his presidency, even though they were on different sides of the barricade during the election campaign.
But Biden’s legacy will be remembered above all for the attempt to bring Russia to its knees militarily through NATO and Ukraine. The war in Ukraine was not least Biden’s war. The US economist and peace researcher Jeffrey Sachs has pointed out how the Biden administration did everything in its power to cross each and every red line in the run-up to the war – and how, during the war, it allowed each and every peace initiative, such as the Istanbul negotiations in spring 2022, to be stymied in its belief in certain victory.
In Gaza, on the other hand, Biden shares responsibility for the Israeli army’s massacres. Here, too, a ceasefire was prevented that, according to negotiators, could have been agreed as early as in December 2023, under exactly the same conditions as the current ceasefire.
Parrots in the transatlantic limelight
Moreover, last but not least, Biden stands for having accelerated the decline of the US by expanding and strengthening global political coalitions such as the BRICS alliance through its own economic wars. Were it not for the antithetical assistance of the US, this might never have come to pass.
However, the real losers of the past four years are Europe and the populations on this side of the Atlantic. In blind loyalty, the governments in the European Union and the European Commission in particular, were slavishly shackled to Washington’s decisions. In the Bundestag, too, there was, all too often, a veritable competition of the parrots. In the mainstream media, people raced to outdo each other in terms of transatlantic posturing. Grotesque exaggerations of Ukrainian reports of victory and chances of victory filled newspaper columns and the airwaves of talk shows attended by so-called military experts, who were often made to look foolish in the light of the facts on the ground just a few weeks later.
Since Donald Trump took office, desperate attempts have been made to salvage the security policy concept of absolute subservience to the US. On top of this, there is a new player in the form of the AfD, which believes that by unconditionally supporting Trump – and the oligarchs by his side – it can step into the breach. Even in the periphery of the Roman Empire, the succession of emperors was viewed with trepidation.
The CDU is joining the fray with Jens Spahn, who is offering to form a front against China, expecting rewards from the US in return. The outgoing SPD Chancellor Olaf Scholz is freezing a tranche of three billion euro for Ukraine to placate Trump. Only Green Party Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock seems to have once again completely misread the writing on the wall and is talking up the idea that Europe must now be strong in order to be taken seriously by Trump – in other words, she is offering precisely what Trump is demanding of the Europeans anyway. These are truly interesting times!
Europe as a bridgehead of the US has not delivered.
Trump’s analysis, in turn, is very simple: Ukraine and Europe, the “bridgehead” of the US (Zbigniew Brzeziński), have not delivered in the attempt to “ruin” Russia – backed by China (Annalena Baerbock). What is needed here now is a straightening of the front, if you will, one that could, however, open the window to peace in Ukraine a crack. At the same time, there is the temptation to continue the war as an intensified economic war if Russia does not agree to freeze the conflict, even if this leads to a further destabilisation of societies in Europe.
Let’s remember that Trump and Biden’s objective has always been to destroy economic relations between Germany and Russia, between Europe and Russia, because these relations endangered the mere bridgehead function of the continent for the US. And by supplying industrial expertise, Russia was able at the same time to stake a claim to great power status.
Without cheap supplies of energy from Russia, however, Europe’s further economic decline is inevitable. Russia, on the other hand, has found Asian alternatives in the form of China, India and Iran – also when it comes to importing industrial goods. Paradoxically, it is the unconditional devotion of the European elites, this act of cutting themselves off from any trade policy alternative, that makes Europe increasingly unattractive to Trump as a bridgehead of the US.
Trump’s northwest empire as an alternative
At some point, Europe will only be fit for being broken up and used for parts. In the digital world, Germany has already been reduced to the status of a completely dependent entity vis-à-vis the US. Trump’s more aggressive Monroe Doctrine, which, if necessary, also envisages the forcible annexation of Canada and Greenland, in addition to the Panama Canal, must therefore be taken seriously. This is an imperial concept by the US to challenge Russia and China in the Arctic while at the same time creating the largest country in the world in terms of size and natural resources.
Trump’s northwest empire is the alternative to Europe as a bridgehead. Should the 47th US President set about implementing this, no stone will be left unturned also at NATO. The US will insist that Europe rearm on a massive scale in order to keep Russia in check. Engagement, also economically, as was the case during the Cold War, is not to be expected. NATO partners – as in the case of Denmark – will be dealt with as is seen fit. The myths of a community of shared values are evaporating entirely. Even mutual defence is becoming increasingly unlikely.
The transatlanticists (both new and old) are prepared neither for Trump nor for this. They are either blinded by having received an exclusive invitation to the inauguration ceremony or are labouring under the misapprehension that the old world as they know it will keep on turning as before. Along the lines of Trump needs us after all.
However, the only alternative for Europe is to cast off its bridgehead status, diversify trade (including with the BRICS countries) and source energy in a competitive manner once again. If there is no change of tack here, no turning away from the vassal relationship, Europe’s further social and economic decline appears to be unstoppable.
Sevim Dagdelen is a Member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the German Bundestag and foreign policy spokesperson for the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance
he views expressed in the articles published on this website do not necessarily represent those of Liberation.
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This first appeared in Liberation journal
Image: Content as vassals but it will end in tears: Prime Minister Keir Starmer attends a Quad meeting alongside German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, French President Emmanuel Macron and US President Joe Biden and at the Bundeskanzleramt building in Berlin. 10 Downing Street. Picture by Tim Hammond / No 10 Downing Street
