00:00In the meantime, we're going to talk more about that subject that reopened the programme with these damning criticisms of Europe from Donald Trump,
00:09and particularly in the interview with Politico news outlet.
00:14And we're joined to do that by Amanda Sloat, who is a professor of practice in the School of Politics, Economics and Global Affairs at the IE University in Madrid.
00:26You were also, I think, Amanda, you also worked in the Biden administration at the State Department.
00:33First of all, welcome to the programme. Very good to have you with us. We do appreciate your time.
00:38I want to start maybe first this national security document then last week, which already talked about Europe losing its way, losing its identity,
00:49too many immigrants and openly suggested that the United States should do what it could to boost nationalist parties, anti-immigration parties within Europe.
01:03What do you think that is going to look like? What might we expect from the Trump administration?
01:07I mean, in a way, none of this is new, as I think your report alluded to.
01:14J.D. Vance set out a number of these principles already in February in the speech that he delivered to the Munich Security Conference.
01:21So I think what is new about this is seeing it in black and white.
01:25But it surely has certainly has been a consistent part of what the administration has been speaking and doing, in fact, over the first year of the administration.
01:34Europe's political establishment, you know, its centre-right, they're really rocked by this.
01:41At first, they were silent, but it became hard to ignore.
01:48How do you think they should react? We had some of the reactions there in our report from Solange.
01:53What should they do? Should they just dismiss it and say, stop interfering?
01:57What do you think are the right reactions from the establishment?
02:00And then we'll go on to talk about those nationalist parties he hopes to help.
02:04This has been a challenge for European leaders all year.
02:10To date, European leaders have largely taken the decision to stay quiet.
02:15They have universally sought to flatter the president.
02:20They have sought to appease the president.
02:22They have certainly engaged in quiet diplomacy with him.
02:26But they have not been critical of the democratic backsliding that we have seen in the U.S.
02:30They have not pushed back on the critiques that he has made of them.
02:36The question now is whether seeing this in black and white and hearing these words from the president himself is going to start to develop a more forceful reaction from European leaders, as your report has suggested has happened in some quarters.
02:50The challenge for European leaders is that they recognize they've got a number of key dependencies on the United States.
02:57There has been dependence in terms of security.
03:00There certainly are deep economic ties between us.
03:02There is dependency in the technology sector.
03:05And there is a desire to keep the United States engaged in Ukraine.
03:09And so the balancing act that European leaders have tried to find is how they push back on some of these attacks, with these certainly being the most personal and direct ones, with trying to keep the United States on side in the face of some of these very real dependencies.
03:24In the document, it talked about Washington trying to help far-right anti-immigration parties.
03:36They don't all want Trump's help.
03:38If you look at France, for example, Jordan Bardella, who is the leader of the Rassemblement National, the far-right anti-immigration party here, he, I think, would consider Donald Trump's backing very unhelpful in France.
03:53Trump is not liked, even amongst far-right voters, and certainly not amongst any voters he might be trying to reach out to.
04:01But if you look at Germany, they are quite keen, probably, on the idea.
04:10Is Trump even aware of any of this?
04:15Who knows what Trump is personally aware of?
04:19But I think you're right, that it's a double-edged sword for the administration.
04:22By nature of being a populist party, you are going to be France first and Germany first.
04:28And so you are going to have a more complicated set of engagements with countries like the United States.
04:35Certainly, we have seen conversations in the U.S. about supporting, about commenting on some of the judicial proceedings that have happened, for example, in countries like France and Romania.
04:45But we have also seen a number of these countries or parties and countries that are trying to actively support their working-class base be affected by a number of the tariff policies and economic chaos that we have seen coming out of the administration's policies.
05:02And so it's going to be hard for them to fully identify with those as well.
05:07So I think that is why we've actually seen a quite muted response from some of these far-right parties in support of that.
05:14Now, the question is going to be whether they can find alignment on other things, especially in terms of very hard-line views on immigration, for example.
05:24Why is Trump doing this, do you think?
05:25Why is Washington doing this?
05:26Do they genuinely care about Europe and think it is losing its way, even though Europe can look after itself?
05:34Or would they quite like Europe to fail?
05:39I think the United States, under the Trump administration, is trying to put themselves in a very strong economic position.
05:46And so they have been targeting what they have not liked within the European Union, especially in terms of regulation of tech companies.
05:53There have long been complaints by American presidents, going back to Eisenhower, in fact, of Europe not paying enough in terms of its own defense.
06:02But Trump in the first term and now is certainly making much more of that a centerpiece of his campaign, in part to be able to reduce some of the expenditure, in theory, on its capacities in Europe to bring them back home or refocus them elsewhere.
06:18What is new in this term of the Trump administration has been these attacks on culture in Europe in a way that aligns with what has been happening in the United States.
06:29There has been a strong resurgence of focus on so-called traditional values.
06:33There has been this so-called focus on free speech.
06:37But the irony, of course, is that the Trump administration is criticizing in Europe what it is trying to do in many cases back home.
06:45And do you think Europe should make that more clear to Donald Trump, you know, or should Europe just accept that, you know, this formerly Western alliance is over?
06:57There is now a big rift, which will certainly delight Russia.
07:01It certainly does delight Russia.
07:05I don't think the transatlantic alliance is over completely.
07:08Our countries have long been bound by history, by culture.
07:12We still have the world's largest trade and investment relationship.
07:15We still have a very strong military alliance.
07:18And it does not seem, despite the strong rhetoric, that the Trump administration wants to completely end that.
07:24However, we are seeing very real, very targeted, very personal attacks on Europe, including its leaders and its population.
07:33In my own view, Europe should be pushing back more strongly than what it has been.
07:39I recognize the very real dependencies that Europe is dealing with.
07:43I hope that Europe takes this as a wake-up call to really double down on making progress on reducing those dependencies
07:50in the full range of sectors from defense to technology.
07:54But I think Europe has a responsibility to speak up on behalf of democracy,
07:59both in terms of the democratic practices that it has here in Europe and also the challenges to democracy that we're seeing in the United States.
08:07I think it's become very clear with the 28-point plan, with the national security strategy, and now with Trump's comments,
08:13that this approach of staying silent and deferential is not working for Europe.
08:19OK, well, we're out of time, I'm afraid.
08:22Very good to talk to you.
08:23Thank you so much for your thoughts and ideas on that.
08:26Amanda Sloat speaking to us there from IE University in Madrid.
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