The case for European autonomy is far from gone

The return of multilateralism is fragile and building autonomy from the United States remains an urgent need for all in Europe. 

When Joe Biden won last year's US presidential election, the sigh of relief here was more than obvious. He launched a trade war and levied damaging tariffs in the name of a misunderstanding of economics. Trump had repeatedly questioned the value of the transatlantic alliance, opening up real doubt over the American commitment to US defence. He broke from the shared agreement on Iran, activating sanctions against European companies. He was openly hostile to some European leaders and only tended to reward the most autocratic and populist elements of our nations. He was reluctant to stand up to Russia, which continued to threaten Europe's Eastern borders. Across the panoply of US-Europe relations, he wrought havoc.

In this environment, there had been more serious discussion in Europe, perhaps really for the first time ever, about how to be less dependent on the US. Abstractly there was always an obvious risk in tying so much of Europe's policy to the understanding of benevolence of the US but no one had believed that the values and worldview which underpinned the transatlantic alliance would really come apart. Trump blew that assumption apart.

Work was begun on building more capacity in defence production (if not actual military actions), on building up the euro as a more widely traded currency and on creating tools of retaliation to ensure that US threats would have a cost that Washington would pay attention to. There was no intention of ending the transatlantic alliance or of 'decoupling' but rather of making sure that Europe was able to act alone where necessary. 

No doubt if Biden had lost in 2020, efforts to build European autonomy would have been redoubled. Instead, they slowed as the election year neared, stalled in the months of campaigning and then stopped as Trump was ejected from the White House. 

'It's over'. This was the dominant feeling in Europe. The nightmare of the Trump administration was done with and things could go back to normal. Some countries had been reluctant to embrace the idea of autonomy from the US in any case and so were more than happy to reverse course and once again place their faith in the eternal reliability of an American protector. 

But, putting aside the ways that Biden has not really broken from Trump at all (see the emphasis on 'buy American'), it is deeply and irresponsibly complacent to believe that we could not see a return of either Trump or Trumpism. Indeed the latter is almost likely. 

The Republican party and a good section of Republican voters are now totally committed to Trumpism, to the alternate version of reality that Trump espouses. In April, 55% of Republican voters believed that Trump's loss was due to electoral fraud. Liz Cheney, someone who obviously falls into the same conservative tradition as her father Dick Cheney, is one of the few prominent Republicans who has been willing to push back on the 'big lie' of electoral fraud being the cause of the 2020 election result. By way of thanks, the party has ousted her from her position as leader of the Republicans in the House of Representatives. 

It is hard to overestimate the seriousness of this situation. A major party in an established democracy continuously questions the validity of an election won by its opponents. Many of their supporters genuinely believe that their opponents have illegitimately taken power. Within the party's lawmakers, there are almost certainly a good number who know that these accusations of electoral fraud are nonsense but who choose to go along with it because they think it plays well with the base, that it's something they need to say in order to ensure their re-election. The fate of Liz Cheney certainly shows that there is no space for dissent from the Trumpist line. The Republicans and a section of the US population have not just shifted right - if that were all this would be an entirely different conversation - they have taken a road to unswerving populism and unreality.

This is a risk to Europe that is not being taken seriously enough. The US is a majoritarian two-party system. We are already on a countdown for the Republicans to take back control. It would not take much for them to take back the Senate, winning the House is also fairly plausible and the presidency could even be in play. Whether Trump himself will ever serve another term is hard to say. Whether the US will ever see another Trumpist administration appears to be little more than a matter of time.

As such, our leaders need to get over their feelings of relief and get back into the business of making European autonomy a reality. Not as an insult to the Atlanticists in Washington nor as a declaration of total independence. Where possible and desirable (for example on climate change), cooperation between Europe and the United States must continue and perhaps even go further. This is no call for a grand realignment, a misguided policy of European neutrality and equidistance between the US and China (a flawed idea I have written about previously). But we do have at least a few years breathing space right now and this time must not be wasted. 

If the US did pull the plug on the defence commitment, could we deal with it ourselves? If Russia invades Ukraine and the US declines to send in any forces can we do anything about it? If the US launches a new round of aggressive foreign policy in countries much nearer to us than to them, can our companies be safeguarded from American sanctions or will we need to meekly follow? If tariffs return in force on dubious pretexts, will we have any leverage to bring Washington to the negotiating table? Questions which would have been outlandish and pointless speculation must be taken seriously today.  European autonomy is an insurance policy and one that we may need to call upon sooner rather than later. 

We might be wrong. Biden and the Democrats might fix America's warped politics faster than we would dare to hope. Our insurance might not be necessary. But why take the risk?