Donald Trump’s threats “against the sovereignty of a state” are “unacceptable”, declared one European political leader on January 17th, after the American president threatened to impose an additional 10% tariff on eight European countries that sent military personnel to Greenland. “Commercial blackmail is equally intolerable,” he added. Two weeks earlier the same leader criticised America’s capture of Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela: “Respect for international law and the sovereignty of states cannot be applied selectively.”
The leader in question was not a liberal democrat but Jordan Bardella, the head of France’s populist-right National Rally (RN). He and fellow European “patriots” have drawn inspiration from Mr Trump’s re-election and potent blend of country-first, anti-immigrant, green-sceptic nationalism. But the American president’s repeated threats to Danish sovereignty over Greenland have put their ties to the MAGA movement under strain.
The Trump administration’s support for European nationalists is explicit. America’s national security strategy last year stated that “the growing influence of patriotic European parties…gives cause for great optimism.” The guest list for Mr Trump’s inauguration was a “Who’s Who” of the populist right. Those attending included Giorgia Meloni, Italy’s prime minister; Britain’s Nigel Farage, leader of Reform UK; representatives of Germany’s far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD); and Eric Zemmour and Marion Maréchal, two French conservative nationalists, the latter a niece of the RN leader, Marine Le Pen.
MAGA networks have long forged links with America’s “civilisational allies in Europe”, as a State Department memo put it last year. Some outreach goes under the radar. Last May, for instance, Kevin Roberts, the Heritage Foundation’s president and a friend of Mr Trump, swung through Paris, meeting various hard-right figures. Other efforts are undisguised. Elon Musk and Steve Bannon have spoken at Atreju, the yearly festival of Ms Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party. In Munich last year J.D. Vance, America’s vice-president, met Alice Weidel, the AfD co-leader, and denounced the “firewall” that isolates her party. Last summer Mr Trump made Charles Kushner, a real-estate associate and father of his son-in-law, Jared, ambassador to Paris; in December Mr Kushner hosted a meeting with Ms Le Pen and Mr Bardella.
Mr Trump’s recent threats, however, have made some European nationalists queasy. Having hugged MAGA close, Ms Weidel declared that the president had violated his “fundamental campaign promise” not to interfere in other countries. Mr Trump’s adventurism is worsening divisions inside the AfD. Some think support from MAGA is so valuable that publicly reprimanding America is self-defeating. Others on the party’s anti-American wing have revived their old concerns about German vassalage to America.
Another example is France, which will hold a presidential election in 2027. Polls show the RN’s candidate will be the favourite, be it Ms Le Pen, who has been banned from running for office for five years but is appealing, or Mr Bardella. The RN has crafted a message—in effect, “France First”—with a distinct Trumpian echo. “Even if we don’t use the slogan ‘Make France Great Again’,” says an RN official, “that’s what it’s all about.”
Yet the RN’s flirtation with the MAGAsphere has been more ambiguous than those of its European friends, thanks to a Gaullist diplomatic tradition of fierce independence from America. Ms Meloni and Viktor Orban, Hungary’s prime minister, tend to heap praise on Mr Trump. Mr Bardella is more cautious. He likes the way the American president defends his country’s interests, but told The Economist that “he does it in a very American style that is not European and even less French.” “MAGA is complicated for the RN,” says Dominique Reynié, a political scientist, “because the French don’t like Trump and public opinion is sceptical about the US.” RN voters have a less favourable impression of Mr Trump (30%) than those in Germany who back the AfD (35%) or voters in Britain who support Reform (50%).
The RN is trying to reconcile its traditional agenda, resisting the European Union’s supranational federalists in defence of national sovereignty, with the new need for solidarity with a fellow EU country, Denmark. Fabrice Leggeri, an RN member of the European Parliament, denies any contradiction: “Our line is consistent with our conception of sovereignty.” The party, he says, favours a “Europe of nations” which “can regain a strong voice, and make itself respected against a show of force, whether from Donald Trump or China.”
Not all of Europe’s populist right has expressed discomfort with Mr Trump’s threats. Poland’s nationalists have been quiet, hoping not to jeopardise their country’s close transatlantic links. So have Spain’s Vox and the Netherlands’ Geert Wilders. Rather than confront her friend, Ms Meloni suggested that there had been a “communication” problem over the dispatch of soldiers (though none of hers).
For many Euro-nationalists the risk is that the American president’s brazenness becomes an electoral burden. Last year his threats to annex Canada led to a bitter defeat for Pierre Poilievre, a populist conservative. Mr Farage, who wants to reach out to Trump-sceptics on the right while keeping his pro-Trump core, called Mr Trump’s Greenland threats “wrong”. For the same reasons, the RN is trying to balance a more muscular approach to Mr Trump with its version of Euroscepticism. A poll on January 19th found that 73% of those who back France’s centre-right Republicans want to oppose any American annexation of Greenland, compared with 59% of RN supporters. The RN wants to win over those Republicans in 2027. MAGA is clearly seeking to help parties that want to weaken the EU to win elections. But the more barefaced Mr Trump’s threats, the greater a political liability he becomes. ■
To stay on top of the biggest European stories, sign up to Café Europa, our weekly subscriber-only newsletter.