Trump’s victory: Implications for Britain and Europe
The Memorandum | No. 17.2024
In ten weeks’ time, Donald Trump will begin his second term in office as President of the United States (US). His administration of 2025-2029 will be one of the most significant in American, indeed global, history. The new administration’s economic priorities, particularly in competing with the People’s Republic of China (PRC), will likely result in fierce commercial competition with Europe.
In foreign policy, the first Trump administration (2016-2020) was unpredictable but actually focussed on peace. Trump was eager to leave Afghanistan and end the long ‘global war on terror’. He tried to win over the PRC, but felt compelled to engage in a trade war because of Beijing’s abuse of the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) rules and massive intellectual property theft. He opened relations with North Korea in the hope of ending the Cold War dispute. Over Russia, there was really no policy at all beyond diplomatic engagement. The US made one small intervention in Yemen but focused on the Abraham Accords of peacebuilding in the Middle East. The new administration may actually be characterised by its efforts to achieve peace in international affairs. American isolationism is certain and the implications of a US withdrawal from the world are very serious indeed.
In defence policy, the US may seek to ‘bring home the legions’, reducing its support to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) in Europe. Indeed, the alliance itself may be in jeopardy as Article 5, the collective defence clause, is unlikely to be honoured if Trump’s most strident supporters get their way. It implies that Europe and the United Kingdom (UK) will have to spend more on their own defences. Given their current dependence on the US, they would need to raise the number of their capabilities and build more of their own surveillance, electronic warfare, and transportation units immediately.
Why is this imperative? The answer lies in the reactions of the rest of the world to an absence of US interest in international affairs. America has not been isolationist since 1941. The world has become so used to a ‘present’ US that it is hard to imagine what international relations will look like without it.
What does this mean for Ukraine? The Russians will, in the short term, seek a military victory before Trump’s inauguration, and then demand a negotiated end to their war against Ukraine. The peace settlement will likely be severe, effectively ending, in de facto terms, Ukraine’s sovereignty through disarmament and control of its economy. Volodymyr Zelenskyy, President of Ukraine, will surely not stay on under such circumstances. Freed of sanctions by Trump, Russia will use its military victory to acquire Moldova and reiterate its demands for the demilitarisation of Eastern Europe, first issued in December 2021. This will almost certainly precipitate a crisis in US-European relations.
More broadly, Russia will probably use its military victory to assert, briefly, its position vis-à-vis the PRC. The Russia-PRC alignment will be cemented as an alliance in all but name, which, with Iran and North Korea, will confirm the ‘CRINK’ or Eurasian bloc. The next step will be for Moscow and Beijing to encourage India’s alignment and thus complete the revision of the ‘global order’. For the PRC, this will confirm its policy of creating ‘a new world order with Chinese characteristics’. Perhaps the longer-term effect of not having a ‘common enemy’ will allow old rivalries between Russia, the PRC, and India to resurface.
Trump’s supporters have made it clear that they would not send Americans to defend or to die for the Taiwanese.
Nevertheless, in the short term, America’s absence in international affairs will permit the PRC to increase its economic pressure on Taiwan, and, following this ‘softening up’ of Taipei, a physical move against that nation seems inevitable.
Using Thomas Schelling’s famous insight, Beijing will calculate that raising the risk level for the US will deter Washington, DC from intervention. Trump’s supporters have made it clear that they would not send Americans to defend or to die for the Taiwanese. As this new administration reaches its end, long after the mid-terms have faded, then the PRC is likely to make a stronger move: Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), has staked his reputation on ‘rejuvenation’. This is the Communists’ euphemism for the seizure, by force, and annexation of Taiwan, against the will of the Taiwanese people, occurring during Xi’s term in office.
The implications are that the open international order of the post-1945 period, where borders were solidified and international institutions sought to resolve conflict, is not just weakened, but potentially dissolved for good. Extended US deterrence over Europe can no longer be expected. In the rest of the world; some states will seek redress of old rivalries by force, knowing the Americans will not intervene. India and Pakistan, Sudan and Egypt, and Iran and the Arab states of the Middle East, may all try to resolve conflicts of irredentism.
Israel may find itself placed under very severe pressure, particularly if Iran – with Russian backing and thinking that the US will turn its back – makes a stronger move against Tel Aviv. This pressure need not be entirely military and direct if Iran can regenerate its proxies. The world might hope for a peace settlement from the Trump administration, but the Gulf states may decide to settle with the PRC, Iran, and Russia if they feel abandoned by the US. There remains some ambiguity about Israel, not least as the Americans want the wars against the terrorist entities of Hamas and Hezbollah to end quickly.
The defeat of Ukraine, Taiwan, and Moldova, and an incomplete victory for Israel, would be part of a series of setbacks for the free world which can be traced back through Iraq (2009, 2015), Crimea (2014), Libya (2011-2015), Syria (2015), and Afghanistan (2021). From a Russian and Chinese perspective, America and its allies are in retreat and ‘in decline’. It matters little that this is factually untrue: the point is that Russian and Chinese actions will be based on what they believe to be true. The tragedy is that too many British and European leaders have been complicit with this phenomenon.
These assessments are made on the strength of Trump’s stated intentions and his track record as president. However, it is perfectly possible that he will seek to surprise, to launch new initiatives which fit with his interpretation of American interests and what is suitable for ‘America first.’ The key issue for the next few months will be a sense of uncertainty among free and open countries. Despite some indications of primarily a domestic agenda in the US, Trump has said only that he intends to end wars and make deals. That ambiguity of intent caused some hesitation by America’s adversaries in his first administration. This time, they may not be deterred. Indeed, Russia fully intends to present the Americans with a military victory over Ukraine and push for the dismantling of NATO. The British and Europeans should now decide, and act, together, although their track record hitherto has been weak, vacillating, and divided.
Is there still hope?
Yes, there is. Proponents of NATO should present the alliance to the White House as an asset, not a liability. The US, Canada, the UK, and Europe offer over two million armed forces personnel, an armada of warships, a fleet of submarines, nuclear weapons, thousands of tanks, and a seriously impressive air force. American power is augmented by military forces it does not pay for: NATO is a ‘free good’ for the US. Nevertheless, Britain and France should make a declaration of extended nuclear deterrence over Northern, Eastern, and Southern Europe. There should be an immediate UK focus on rebuilding British national defence in conventional forces. As they say in the Bible: ‘when your enemies gather, put stones on your walls.’
Britain should promote its independence with the White House. The message should be ‘the Atlantic is where Britain belongs’.
Britain and Europe need to establish themselves as a beacon of stability. London should concentrate on economic links with Washington, DC. The catchphrase with Trump should be a colloquial one: ‘Let’s make money together.’ Britain and Europe have much to offer American commerce and consumers, and a tariff war merely increases the costs on both sides of the Atlantic. ‘Cooperation’, we need to say, ‘makes good commercial sense.’
Britain should promote its own brand. Suddenly, the UK’s distance from the European Union (EU) will prove to be of value, as the new administration takes a critical view of Europeans’ moralising about the world without offering a sufficient defence apparatus to enforce it, and Americans are tired of the EU’s self-serving policies towards the PRC. All too often, countries represented at Brussels have been content for the Americans to pay for the defence of the continent while taking as much as they can in terms of concessions with Beijing and Moscow – from car sales to hydrocarbon purchases. Britain should promote its independence with the White House. The message should be ‘the Atlantic is where Britain belongs’.
The challenge is that Sir Keir Starmer, Prime Minister, Angela Rayner, Deputy Prime Minister, and David Lammy, Foreign Secretary, have criticised Donald Trump publicly, including name-calling. The damage our own leaders have done, in their haste to make populist appeals, should be a warning to everyone in this country. Britain depends on the US in areas such as space defence, nuclear cooperation, and commerce, so insulting one’s closest ally is a deeply foolish policy. The solution is to conduct that relationship, which is certainly special, with dignity and humility.
Dr Rob Johnson is a Distinguished Fellow at the Council on Geostrategy. He is also the Director of the Oxford Strategy, Statecraft, and Technology (Changing Character of War) Centre.
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There is no mention of our nuclear dependence on the United States. We currently have a massive expensive nuclear power program to continue the provision of nuclear material for weapons manufacture. Heavily disguised as a civil engineering energy response to a lower, but still with significant contributions, carbon alternative to fossil fuels in the UK's Climate Change strategy.
As the US holds the nuclear trigger for our nuclear weapons, not to mention the maintenance and construction of its delivery systems, the US effectively controls the UK's defence and international policy options. If the UK is seriously faced with a, not unwelcome, divorce from US foreign policy dictations, then it would provide a reasonable expectation that the UK could divest itself of nuclear weapons and use the 100s of billions that consumes for more advantageous domestic purposes and enable a major fill-up to our ability to meet Climate, Environmental, Health and Social policy objectives.