Remaking Europe in MAGA’s Image

“Make Europa Great again” by deriding its weakness is the rallying cry of Donald Trump’s new National Security Strategy (NSS) of December 4th. “America First” as remaking Europe in MAGA’s image has become a new goal of US geopolitics. And the rest of the 33-page pamphlet is returning to 19th century thinking by dividing the world into spheres of influence. Yesterday’s China-threat is being reduced to pure economic competition. Russia is allowed to return to its Soviet or earlier imperialist roots. And the “Western Hemisphere” belongs, as ever, to the United States of America under a rehashed version of the Monroe Doctrine of 1823. That the strongman in the White House, the wheeler-dealer in real estate likes partitioning the world into plots which can be exploited by their respective overlords does not come as a surprise. But where does his and MAGA’s disdain for Europe come from? 

First, it derives from a president who despises the weak, who feels unencumbered by history, and who thinks himself too big to need allies, a man who knows no morals. In short, by a Darwinist, a transactionalist, a narcissist, a nihilist; by a leader who lacks the qualities needed to run a democracy. 

Secondly, this National Security Strategy was most likely written by his coterie of ideological advisors without consultation of career bureaucrats or even diplomats. Unlike the preceding NSS of his first administration which fitted well into the receding curve of recent American foreign policy, the new document represents a total deviation from America’s worldview of the past and a dramatic turn to a self-laudatory (just read Trump’s 2-page introduction) and unscrupulous repositioning of America in the world. 

This marked difference between the NSS from 2017 to that of December 2025 reflects the path from the first to the second Trump Administration and from MAGA 1.0 to MAGA 2.0. During the first term the radical forces which had aligned themselves with Donald Trump found out that gaining real power and achieving the desired shift from a liberal to an illiberal hegemony required more than a set of different policies. Since that power lies in institutions these needed to be changed, too: from government bureaucracies to law firms, from universities to the media. And that has been the playbook of Trump II with the DOGE experiment, revenge indictments against his former prosecutors, attacks on elite universities and threats to critical legacy media. 

If you think that all liberal weakness rests on the rules and regulations of those institutions, then it is only the next step to take this view abroad and apply it to US-foreign policy. Then everything you see in Europe is what you hate at home. Through this lens the “old world” becomes a bastion of liberalism and hellhole of woke culture; notwithstanding that “wokism” has been a very American misrepresentation of French philosophical thinking. You just believe, as Donald Trump does, that Europe was invented “to screw” the US. 

Now, you can list all the provocations, omissions and contradictions in this treatment of Europe and the world. This new bible of “America First” wants to “reestablish conditions of strategic stability across the Eurasian landmass”, which Putin could not have formulated any better for his purposes. Unlike its preceding version the new NSS contains no more references to human rights. The document chastises the EU for its lax migration policies whilst the US will be first in becoming a non-white majority country, much earlier than most European states. Some would call this a projection of one’s own fears. This NSS prescribes non-interventionism but at the same time suggests clear interference into European politics by “cultivating resistance to Europe’s current trajectory within European nations”. It suggests to “defend” US-national sovereignty by intervening in other nation’s sovereign affairs. 

But pointing out the lack of values and consistency in this provocative but honest document won’t help Europe in its dependency on the US and its precarious position in the world. From a European perspective it might be more useful to look at the different forces in the United States propagating these views and the interests behind them; to ask what elements in this mixture of facts, fiction and half-truths are popular enough to survive the second Trump administration - and why they might do so. 

The NSS tries to give something to every faction of the coalition that has taken Trump into the White House twice. For the isolationists there is the withdrawal from America’s traditional role as a global policeman. There is something, if not much, for the China hawks in the confirmed but watered down guarantee for Taiwan. The withdrawal of the US from the Middle East opens the way for the dealmakers in and outside the president’s family. For the remnants of the white working class the tariff policy promises the return of manufacturing to America’s heartland. The deregulation mantra is the gift to the tech brothers in Silicon Valley. And the export of the culture war to Europe is there to satisfy the Christian, nativist, anti-woke faction around Steve Bannon and Vice-President J.D. Vance. 

There are still enough points of departure for those factions to argue about. But so far Donald Trump has cultivated constant squabbles as a way of keeping his coalition intact, and it is unlikely to break apart over issues of foreign and security policy. But behind the incoherence of content and piecemeal promises lies the real art of this NCC and Trumpian politics in general: the integration of narrative and purpose, which his opponents are so lacking, the melding of soft cultural issues with hard-baked political interests, the stirring up of emotions to hide exploitation and extraction.  

The real reason why the supposed-to-be ally Europe has come more under American attack than its traditional enemies is because the EU is the only part of the old order which sticks to the rule of law and has been trying to challenge the domination of the American tech industry. That is why Microsoft was forced by the US-government to shut down the emails of the prosecutor at the International Criminal Court, Karim Ahmad Khan; and why a puny 140-million-Dollar fine to Elon Musk over transgressions by his platform X caused such a barrage of angry words from members of Trump’s cabinet. With the economic advantage over Europe clearly based on the workings of the US-tech industry and its bet on Artificial Intelligence, Trump has tied his fate to the tycoons of Silicon Valley. So, giving them free reign in a Europe of vassal nations is part of the deal. 

If the MAGA coalition will hold after the mid-term elections in November 2026 is an open question. If US-Democrats are smart, they will try to link the growing domestic troubles and the widespread suspicion of AI to Trump’s contested policies as outlined in the NCC. If European centre parties are smart, they will use the widespread antipathy against Donald Trump plus their own defense of national sovereignty “as a weapon against the Euro MAGA crowd”, as Mark Leonhard suggests in the “Economist”. 

But none of this will be easy. If you’d ask the average US-voter about his or her view of Europe you’d get something like: “nice place, but they should pay for their own defense”. There is still a sentimental relationship to the “old world” as long as it doesn’t cost the “New World” much. Polls might tell you that there are still more than 60% of Americans who favour NATO, support Ukraine and the defense of Taiwan. Yet those kinds of polls never reach deeper in asking “what, if you must pay for it”. 

If you would present the NCC’s seven bullet points listing the “priorities” for US policy on Europe”, the average American voter would easily sign them off, may be except the one about “cultivating resistance in Europe”. “Strategic stability with Russia”. Tick. “Enabling Europe to stand on its own feet…” Why not: “Open European Markets…” Of course. -Get Europe to act on “hostile economic practices”. Sure thing. Or to put in another way: The Trump coalition will not be losing many voters because of what has been written up in this document. And the Democratic Party would be hard pressed to argue against those bullet points during an election campaign or even in government. This ruthless reformulation of US Foreign and Security Policy might shock the liberal establishment on both sides of the Atlantic, but it largely chimes with the sentiments of large parts of the American population. 

Thus, the EU should take the forces behind the wording of the NCC serious, prepare itself for a continuous deregulation onslaught from the US tech sector and should not hope for major changes in the substance of the transatlantic relationship after Trump leaves the scene. Europe must quickly learn to stand on its own feet if it does not want to lose America for good. .