Melania and Donald Trump, with Viktor Orban, 2018
Credit: Gints Ivuskans – Shutterstock
How will Europe react to a second Trump term? Already, we are being warned of a more protectionist economic model from Donald Trump, including tariffs being slapped on European imports entering the US.
He claims putting an end to the war in Ukraine will be first on his agenda; this may be just more Trump bluster, but realistically, he is probably the only person who has a shot at doing it. Whatever an impending Trump administration will look like, the European economy will feel the ripples.
On Friday, November 8, after months of anti-Viktor Orban (Hungarian president) rhetoric, EU representatives were his guests in Budapest for the EU summit. Never has a ‘told-you-so’ grin ever been more obvious than that on Orban’s face, as taking into consideration a new Trump era, the EU began to backtrack on the policies of the last 4 years.
Europe backtracks on economy in face of Donald Trump presidency
Gone is the intention to deindustrialise Europe with 3 percent of the bloc’s GDP pledged to research and development; in comes a pledge to simplify and slim down bureaucracy across the bloc’s internal borders; in comes prioritising energy resilience, as well as deepening their transatlantic relationship with the US; and also, more interestingly, food security was a key factor in the discussions.
All of these were key responses to the looming end of the Biden administration, potentially meaning a return to favouring locally produced goods rather than imported products, a radical change in direction from a period of Biden and Von der Leyen being two of the biggest names on the world stage.
Does Donald Trump’s return really spell disaster for Europe?
Following the US election result, European markets rallied at a time it was most needed. The collapse in Germany’s coalition, coupled with Volkswagen reporting the biggest set of factory closures in its history, and the French economy about to nosedive, the news surprisingly offered a glimmer of hope.
Whatever one’s politics and whatever one’s feelings about Donald Trump, so far the effect has meant nothing but good news for the European economy.
