Europe Does Not Need a Domestic Trump Clone

What U.S. President Trump did yesterday with Ukrainian President Zelensky typically happens behind closed doors. Now, in Trump’s words, it was “great television.” This is how the U.S. has treated countries in the Global South for years: as neocolonies expected to meekly say “thank you” for imposed agreements that plunder their resources. It’s no different from how Trump speaks about Panama, Greenland, or Gaza, complete with repulsive AI animations. The U.S. sees the world as a giant globe of resources that belong to them. This has a name: imperialism. It never truly left; it has simply returned naked and unashamed, trampling the last remaining counterforce that once restrained it—international law.
 
Domestically, Trump does the same. He revives the 19th-century capitalism of the “robber barons.” A capitalism without counterweights: no unions, no labor protections, and absolute power to make decisions affecting millions, up to and including deportation. To win this war, he has enlisted Elon Musk and his DOGE team.
 
Zelensky’s calm and controlled demeanor in the face of the world’s most powerful president commanded respect, particularly among Global South nations all too familiar with U.S. bullying. But this brings us no closer to peace. “The unwinnable war,” I wrote in ‘Mutiny’, “has already fed tens of thousands of young men into the meat grinder at the dawn of their lives.”
 
On the eve of the Trump-Zelensky meeting, a deal seemed imminent where Trump would shift the cost of war to Europe, while the U.S. sought control over Ukraine’s resource and mineral extraction via a new fund. This laid bare that this dirty war was never about values—only geostrategic interests and control over resources and fertile land. The question is: Why did the deal collapse last minute?
 
One possibility is that the U.S. aims to further weaken Zelensky’s position, humiliate him, and ultimately push for regime change. This has been the hallmark of U.S. foreign policy for decades: orchestrating regime changes wherever U.S. interests are deemed unserved. This was the fate of Manuel Noriega in Panama and Saddam Hussein in Iraq. One day, a trusted ally; the next, overthrown. Former U.S. diplomat Jeffrey Sachs reminded me last week of a Henry Kissinger quote: “To be an enemy of the U.S. is dangerous; to be a friend is fatal.”
 
Even the U.S.’s “greatest friend,” the European Union, is learning this. In September 2023, I wrote in ‘Mutiny’ that Europe is the losing continent precisely because it blindly follows Washington. “It’s a kind of Stockholm syndrome,” I told Prime Minister De Wever in parliament last week. “The more the U.S. humiliates Europe, the tighter Europe clings to Uncle Sam’s coattails.”
 
Our Defense Minister, Theo Francken, insists on maintaining privileged ties with Washington at all costs, claims inspiration from the U.S. “social model,” finds it normal for Trump to annex Greenland, and would happily order more unaffordable F-35 fighter jets from the U.S.
 
How many shocks does Europe need to grow up? The German recession post-sanctions wasn’t enough. Elon Musk’s meddling in election campaigns? Not enough. Humiliation by U.S. Vice President JD Vance and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in Munich? Still not. Trump’s new tariff war? Even less. Today, Europe’s establishment panics again, charging off like a wild horse escaping a barn—more weapons, more war, preparing for World War III! Europe must not become a clone of the U.S. It does not need a domestic Trump. Instead, it must dare to chart a new course.  
Meanwhile, the EU’s Foreign Minister, Kaja Kallas, insists on prolonging the dirty war in Ukraine, feeding it with weapons and young men on the cusp of adulthood. Kallas lacks democratic legitimacy to make such incendiary statements. Europe needs fewer warmongers like Kallas and more maturity to truly change course and unite with Global South nations like Brazil and China, which have long pursued negotiated solutions.
 
As I wrote in ‘Mutiny’, this war has always had a Janus face. On one side: the violation of Ukraine’s territorial integrity, flouting international law through Russian aggression. Global South nations understand this. On the other: a U.S.-Russia proxy war on Ukraine’s soil, where tens of thousands of young men are cannon fodder for geostrategic conflict. Washington now shamelessly admits this was a proxy war fueled by the U.S. Trump, however, claims it was the ‘wrong’ proxy war—that Russia isn’t the U.S.’s real adversary, and all efforts must shift to the coming war they’re preparing: against China. Solely because Washington sees its economic and technological hegemony challenged by China.
 
The latest fashionable sophistry is that “if you want peace, prepare for war.” It sounds catchy but is catastrophic. History shows that when economies gear for war and minds are primed for conflict, war draws closer. Step by step, hysteria replaces sober analysis. More politicians chirp about war; fewer dare speak of peace. Thinking stops, diplomatic solutions are dismissed, and global peace is gambled away. Europe has no future as a war continent. Militarization will gut its manufacturing industry, and permanent tension with eastern neighbors won’t inch us closer to peace.
 
“My experience teaches that you must talk to the other side. You can’t say, ‘We won’t talk—we know what they think.’ Diplomacy is essential, especially in tense moments,” Jeffrey Sachs told me. Europe must find its own path. Russia isn’t moving; you can’t erase it from the map. Instead of sinking deeper into the vortex of hysteria and platitudes, Europe must develop mature diplomacy—one that charts an independent course, with a vision for its manufacturing sector, respect for international law, and pragmatic relations with all economic giants: the U.S., China, India, Russia, Brazil, or South Africa.