欧洲为“防范特朗普”伤脑筋
2024-01-17 16:53阅读:

负责内部市场的欧盟委员蒂埃里·布雷东说,特朗普2020年曾对欧盟委员会主席乌尔苏拉·冯德莱恩说,“如果欧洲受到攻击,我们绝不会帮助你们、支持你们”。
布雷东在欧洲议会的一场活动上发表上述言论,距艾奥瓦州党团会议和美国共和党总统初选开始投票不足一周时间,且普遍预计特朗普将赢得此次初选。
布雷东提醒人们特朗普持此种观点以及他可能很快会重返白宫这一事实确实在布鲁塞尔引起了真正的担忧和痛苦。
在一定程度上,这是因为他的观点植根于以下这个令人不安的事实:欧洲国家几十年来一直未给其军队提供充足资金,因为他们想当然地认为战争不大可能发生,而且,如果发生最糟糕的情况,美国将赶来帮忙。
无论听起来有多么幼稚,特朗普还是捣毁了这一假设。
一名欧盟高级外交官说:“特朗普上台后,我们醒悟到如下事实,美国可能不会总是出于欧洲利益行事,尤其是如果这样做违背美国利益的话。”
在特朗普总统任内,这一新现实促使欧洲进行了一番反省。官员们断言,欧洲需要为不能像一直以来那样依赖美国做好准备。当拜登总统保留了特朗普的许多美国优先政策后,这种观点得到了强调。
这是令人不安的第二个原因:欧洲在防范特朗普方面做得不够。令人不安的事实是,重新武装27个国家并改变其贸易方式需要很长时间。因此,即使在正常情况下,与美国根深蒂固的关系——以及对美国的终极依赖——也不容易去除。
文章认为,防范特朗普之所以很难,是因为特朗普本人对欧洲构成了一个相当独特的威胁。因为美国不是敌对国家。它是一个老牌盟友。
众所周知,欧洲官员希望特朗普最好不要重返白宫。欧洲央行行长克里斯蒂娜·拉加德本周表示,特朗普的归来将对欧洲构成“威胁”。他第一个总统任期留下的有害遗产可能是,大西洋两岸关系再也不能回到过去。
欧洲面临的麻烦在于,结束对美国的依赖需要数年甚至数十年时间。而在此期间,将很难忽视星球上最有权势的那个人每天都在说些什么,尤其是当他的话与你有关时。
Europe wants to Trump-proof in case of a second term. But
that is not an easy task
By Luke McGee, CNN
Former US President Donald Trump briefly returned as a central
character in European politics earlier this week.
According to the European Union’s internal market chief, Thierry
Breton, Trump told European Commission President Ursula von der
Leyen in 2020 that “if Europe is under attack, we will never come
to help you and to support you.”
Breton’s remarks during an event at the European Parliament came
less than a week before the Iowa caucuses and the start of voting
in the US Republican presidential primary, which Trump is widely
expected to win. They also coincided with Breton’s proposal for a
€100bn fund to bolster ammunition production across the bloc - a
fact not lost on his critics.
Multiple EU officials and diplomats noted to CNN that his sudden
recollection came at a particularly sensitive time, as the EU
attempts to build its own defense capabilities outside of the
US-led NATO alliance. It is no secret that ammunition stocks across
NATO member states have become depleted because of Western military
support for Ukraine.
Whether Trump actually made these comments or not is largely
immaterial to European officials. The former president’s views on
America’s historic role in European security are well known. During
his presidency, Trump regularly talked about defunding NATO while
also complimenting authoritarian leaders, including Russia’s
Vladimir Putin, who are considered adversaries of the very same
military alliance.
The reminder that Trump holds this view and the fact that he might
soon return to the White House do, however, cause real concern and
anguish in Brussels.
Partly, because his beliefs are rooted in the uncomfortable truth
that European nations have underfunded their militaries for decades
on the assumption that war was unlikely and that if the worst were
to happen, the US would rush to their aid.
However naive that might sound, Trump trashed that assumption. And
his hostility toward the Ukraine war effort has an impact even now,
playing into the Republican Party’s reluctance to pass more US
funding for Ukraine.
“When Trump came along it woke us up to the fact that the US might
not always act in European interest, especially if it goes against
American interest,” a senior EU diplomat told CNN. “It sounds naive
saying it out loud, but that was the assumption a lot people
made.”
During the Trump presidency, this new reality caused Europe to do
some soul-searching. Officials concluded that Europe needed to
prepare itself for a future where the United States couldn’t be
relied on in the same way it always had been. That thinking was
underscored when President Joe Biden kept many of Trump’s
America-first policies, particularly on trade and China.
This is the second reason that reminders of Trump’s anti-Europe
sentiments sting: Despite its best intentions, Europe’s
Trump-proofing, as some inelegantly call it, has not gone very
far.
On trade, Europe has taken measures to reduce its dependencies on
single nations and diversify its supply chains so it cannot be held
to ransom should a trading partner suddenly change its policies, as
Trump did on steel, placing tariffs of 25% on imports from the
EU.
“No amount of de-risking can make up for a sudden policy change
that makes it harder for Europeans to sell into America,” says Ian
Bond, deputy director at the Centre for European Reform think-tank.
“In a second term, it’s not beyond the realms of possibility that
he could decide some other material is a risk to American
security.”
On defense and security, the EU has acknowledged its past failures
and agreed to dramatically increase its defense spending across the
bloc and the continent more broadly. It has taken the war in
Ukraine very seriously, sending billions of euros in funding along
with weapons and aid. It is also working hard to bring Ukraine into
the bloc as soon as possible.
Historically, poking Russia and sending this level of European
money and resources to a third-party would have been impossible as
the member states would almost certainly disagree over whether it
was in their own national interest. It has been remarkable that
Europe the EU has been able to go as far and as fast as it has in
supporting Ukraine since the start of the invasion.
Despite this, the uncomfortable truth is that rearming 27 countries
and changing the way they trade takes a very long time, so the
deep-rooted ties with – and ultimate dependency on – would not be
easy to unpick, even under normal circumstances.
But the past few years have been anything but normal for Europe.
Covid-19 took up an enormous amount of its bandwidth, while the war
in Ukraine, a country that borders the EU and is trying to join the
bloc, is top of the agenda at every meeting of EU leaders.
Aside from the distractions, Trump-proofing is hard because Trump
himself presents quite a unique threat to Europe.
Unlike China or Russia, the US is not a hostile state. It is an old
ally and is not actively attacking Europe in the way Beijing or
Moscow might through cyber attacks or military action.
In both those cases, Europe can use economic sanctions or an
increased military presence to protect its interests. Clearly, even
under Trump, that would not be appropriate or necessary against the
US. However, diplomatic action against Trump is also tricky, as his
thin-skinned nature means any criticism risks a massive
overreaction.
The conclusion some diplomats have reached is that the best way to
deal with Trump, should he win this year’s election, is to stay
calm and keep plugging away at distancing Europe from the US.
“Last time, we spent so much time scrambling to respond every time
Trump blurted out whatever thought has just dropped into his head.
Quite often, though, he didn’t act on things he said,” an EU
official told CNN.
Another European diplomat said Brussels cannot get distracted by
Trump as it did the first time around, nor can it pay too much
attention if Trump raises the prospect of ending US support for
Ukraine. “If he starts talking about that, there’s not much we can
really do. We just need to be mature and carry on because however
this war ends, it’s Europe that will bear the consequences, not
America.”
It’s no secret that European officials would rather Trump doesn’t
return to the White House. Christine Lagarde, head of the European
Central Bank, said only this week that Trump’s return would be a
“threat” for Europe. The toxic legacy of his first presidency might
be that the trans-Atlantic relationship is never the same
again.
The trouble for Europe is that it will take years, maybe decades,
to end its reliance on the US. And in that time, it will be very
hard to ignore what the most powerful person on the planet is
saying on any given day, especially when it’s about you.