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As the US gets ready to vote on November 5, there is anxiety in the European Union over Donald Trump’s potential return to power and how it could affect the bloc’s political and security landscape.
Several EU interlocutors have been proposed should Trump return to the White House — though not all have the same agenda.
Mark Rutte, the new NATO secretary-general, is the consensus choice to deal with security challenges and talk with Trump. But Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Polish President Andrzej Duda have also positioned themselves as like-minded Trump allies in Europe.
Mark Rutte: Pro-Europe Trump whisperer
At least three top NATO sources, who could not be quoted by name, told DW that Rutte, a former Dutch prime minister, developed a rapport with Trump during the president’s first term in office and was chosen in part to lead the defense alliance in preparation for Trump’s return.
Camille Grand, a defense and security policy expert at the European Council on Foreign Relations and former NATO assistant secretary-general, said Rutte “is known to have been able to both engage the US president and stand firm when needed” in bilateral interactions and during NATO summits.
In 2018, Rutte famously rescued the alliance from a tense situation at NATO headquarters when Trump threatened that the United States would go its own way if European governments didn’t increase their defense spending. Rutte gently reminded the president that defense spending was going up, and all due to him.
Ian Lesser, who heads the Brussels office of the German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF), said that, if Trump were to win, Rutte would be able to deliver a “better message on burden sharing,” as 23 of NATO’s 32 member countries, including France and Germany, are expected to meet or exceed the target of spending 2% of their GDP on defense this year.
In exchange, Rutte would be looking for assurances on aid for Ukraine and the continued US presence in NATO.
Trump has not only threatened to cut off aid to Ukraine and encouraged Russia to do “whatever the hell” it wants with allied nations — he could even withdraw the US from NATO, according to his former national security adviser, John Bolton.
“Rutte will be looking for predictability from Washington, especially in the backdrop of Russia’s war,” Lesser said.
Viktor Orban: Ideological ally, but not a ‘strategic interlocutor’
Rutte faces competition from Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who met with Trump in July on a solo “peace mission” after visits to Beijing, Kyiv and Moscow, presenting himself as an EU facilitator to end Russia’s war in Ukraine.
And, when Trump’s Democratic opponent, Kamala Harris, said in September that world leaders were “laughing” at the former president, Trump cited his close ties to Orban, hailing him as a strong, tough and smart prime minister.
Zsuzsanna Vegh, an analyst focusing on Central European countries at the GMF, said Orban’s outreach to Trump was primarily to elevate his own standing and build his image as an internationally relevant leader.
“Trump’s victory could also embolden Orban to continue down the path of domestic autocratization,” Vegh said, and “further undermine the EU’s credibility as a community of democracies.”
Experts believe Orban’s anti-immigrant and anti-LGBTQ+ policies have endeared him to Trump’s MAGA support base. Steve Bannon, Trump’s former senior adviser, has even referred to the Hungarian leader as “Trump before Trump.”
As Orban is known to be a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin and has stood against EU support for Ukraine, some observers fear that he could whisper the Kremlin’s thinking into Trump’s ears.
“I doubt that President Putin would need PM Orban to lobby for him in the White House,” Vegh said. “Having said that, his calls for cease-fire and negotiations under the current circumstances, which Orban undoubtedly shares with his American contacts, too, certainly serve Russia’s interests.”
Though Orban may be a “like-minded ally” for Trump, Lesser said, Rutte is a “strategic interlocutor” who speaks for NATO’s security concerns and should have more influence.
Duda and Meloni: Ideologically in tune, but security first
There are other potential EU interlocutors who are ideologically more akin to Trump and Orban when it comes to issues such as immigration, but strategically in tune with Rutte.
President Andrzej Duda, from Poland’s nationalist Law and Justice party, met with Trump in April and reportedly convinced him to let the Republicans unblock a $60 billion (€55.5 billion) aid package for Ukraine in the US Congress.
“Given Poland’s strategic position on NATO’s eastern flank, maintaining robust US relations is seen as vital for national security, irrespective of political affiliations,” Maciej Tyburski, of the Warsaw Institute think tank, wrote in an email to DW.
“While it is true that the conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party may find ideological alignment with Republican leadership in the US, including Trump, the importance of US-Polish relations has historically been acknowledged across the political spectrum,” Tyburski wrote.
Italian Prime Minister Georgia Meloni has also been pitched by her colleagues as the perfect EU partner should Trump win, with some members of her far-right Brothers of Italy party having previously met with the former president.
Antonio Giordano, a Brothers of Italy lawmaker who attended the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee in July, told the Financial Times in September that Meloni would be the “natural interlocutor” for Trump if he “wants to understand how to better deal with Europe.”
Though Meloni herself hasn’t backed a candidate in the US election, her growing ties with Elon Musk, a businessman close to Trump — including several meetings with the billionaire in 2023 — have been noted by some observers as a sign of her preference for the former president. Filippo Simonelli, a junior researcher at the Institute of International Affairs, said Meloni may try to position herself as a link between the US and the EU institutions.
“Meloni [may] try to be the nexus between the right-wing of the European political scene and the von der Leyen Commission, which is already looking at the right more than ever before, and therefore she wants to try to benefit as much as possible from this changing equilibrium,” he said.
But an ideological alignment with Trump does not mean that Meloni has taken her eyes off the threat from Russia. “She is a committed Atlanticist,” Lesser said. Meloni has often expressed her support for Ukraine and thus found respectability in Brussels, with both Duda and Meloni appreciating the value of NATO and collective defense for Europe.
Trump could galvanize Europe’s far right
Some political experts fear that if individual politicians, particularly from far-right groups, align themselves with Trump on social and political issues and end up having more sway over the US president, it could galvanize and normalize the far-right movement within the European Union.
Comfort Ero, head of the International Crisis Group think tank, noted
Trump’s attempts to deal bilaterally with EU and NATO members, as he often did during his first term, could also potentially weaken those institutions. “The unpredictable nature of Trump’s foreign policy, his transactional focus and his disregard for multilateralism would make it harder for a big bureaucracy with 27 EU member states to adjust,” wrote Ero. “European policymakers worry that a second Trump presidency could put their unity to the test.”
“Orban, Meloni and Duda are more aligned with Trump, at least on domestic issues, and will certainly be tempted to take advantage of that connection,” said Grand, the former NATO official. “This fragmentation of the European approach to a potential Trump administration is not helpful for European interests and NATO, as the bilateralization of the security relationship with the US could undermine NATO in the long term.”
Edited by: Martin Kuebler