Don’t Look Now, but Much of Europe Is Already Biden-Proofing in Case of a Second Term

It is the Hawkeye State’s time of year to shine, even in the freezing cold, but much of Europe is secretly warming to what the results of the Iowa caucus could augur for Continental shores. As Europe’s cartography swerves ever more rightward, the conventional view that Europeans are nonplussed about the prospect of a second White House sojourn for Donald Trump is slipping to the margins. There is no doubt that some Europeans — particularly those who grease the gears of the EU’s unwieldy machinery at Brussels — breathed a collective sigh of relief when Joe Biden took office, but new facts on the ground belie press reports to the effect that Europe wants to “Trump-proof” itself.Simply put, ce n’est pas vrai — at least, it is not true across the board. To see why, one could start by taking a glance at France (Mr. Trump already has). President Macron’s second term has been marred less by incompetence than by irrelevance, as all his international initiatives fall flat, he is retreating from Africa, and his party’s lack of a parliamentary majority hobbles his legislative agenda.Last week, as a matter of course correction he made Gabriel Attal his political leading man — at 34, Mr. Attal is France’s youngest prime minister to date. The appointment has nothing to do with power sharing, because in the Fifth Republic it is the president who calls the shots, and everything to do with European Parliament elections in June. Yet Mr. Macron’s chief rival, Marine Le Pen of the National Rally, has long anticipated the president’s maneuver. The president of her right-leaning party is actually the 28-year-old Jordan Bardella. Last month Ms. Le Pen sent Mr. Bardella to Italy, where he joined forces with the Italian deputy prime minister, Matteo Salvini, to start strategizing to push the mainstream leftist European parties to the sidelines. They hardly need Mr. Trump, or any Republican for that matter, to do the heavy lifting in that endeavor. But the stronger the likelihood of a second term for Mr. Trump, the more fuel there is for the conservative Identity and Democracy coalition in the European Parliament. The ideological alignment on key issues like illegal immigration, crime, and traditional conservative values like eschewing surrogate parenthood is already there, but would buckle under another Biden administration. On the matter of aid to Ukraine, things get slightly more complicated. Italy’s prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, has been one of the staunchest European allies of President Zelensky. But after nearly two years of war other prominent voices at Rome are calling for more attention to be focused on diplomatic solutions.In Trump World, that means making a deal. What kind of deal Mr. Trump could make between aggressor and aggrieved is anybody’s guess, but clearly Mr. Biden’s unfocused Ukraine strategy is already stirring unease across the Continent. The more conservatives voted into the European Parliament come June, the more Biden-proofed Brussels will be.That is significant, should Mr. Biden or one of his acolytes end up in the White House next year. The only reason there are more press reports about Europe and Trump is not only because of media bias and persistent cases of Trump Derangement Syndrome, but because European lawmakers’ jockeying for power leaves little room for dwelling on the unhelpful policies of the Democrats. Many consider Brussels, the headquarters of the European project, to be hostage to some of the most problematically progressive policies that have germinated mainly on American shores, and make an uneasy fit for vast sections of the European public. In the Netherlands, the Biden-proofing began with the rise of Geert Wilders’ Party of Freedom last November. Not for Mr. Wilders the largely Muslim ghettos of European cities like Brussels. The outspoken Dutchman is not about to tear down any mosques, but he also doesn’t see the need for new ones to be built, nor does he envisage a place for Islamic education in Europe. President Biden, on the other hand, has consistently failed to censure members of the more radical wing of his own party like Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, who seem to take a curious pleasure in traducing Israel in the service of her own political agendas.Few European leaders will welcome a second Trump term as heartily as Hungary’s Victor Orban. For one thing, the outspoken Mr. Orban is one of the EU’s biggest detractors. He is also no great fan of Mr. Biden’s envoy to Budapest, David Pressman, whose diplomatic faux pas include openly criticizing Hungarian laws pertaining to respect for traditional family values. A Republican in the White House also means, more often than not, a new round of ambassadorial appointments. Don’t tell CNN, but there are whispers of anticipatory Biden-proofing afoot in Britain, the Atlantic ally that President Biden is wont to disrespect, and as far north as Stockholm and as far south as Athens. It is a wide continent, after all.

Don’t Look Now, but Much of Europe Is Already Biden-Proofing in Case of a Second Term

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