Important Shift in US Foreign Policy towards Europe under Trump’s Second Term
Since Donald Trump’s return to the White Houtilize, there has been a significant modify in the US foreign policy towards Europe. While in his first term, the Trump administration officially aligned itself with the transatlantic alliance between European powers and the US, the second term marks a profound, acknowledged, and theorized rupture.
This rupture does not simply consist of a conjunctural criticism of the European Union (EU), but a direct and systematic intervention in the internal political power struggles of European countries, benefiting far-right and neo-fascist parties or governments.
The document “National Security Strategy” published in December 2025 (NSS 2025) serves as a key text in this regard. Under the guise of defconcludeing the “Western civilization” and “European identity”, the Trump administration explicitly designates its real “allies” in Europe: not the EU member states or their institutions, but political forces categorized by Washington as “European patriotic parties.”
This orientation is accompanied by conspiracy, racist, and demographic rhetoric — echoing the theory of the “great replacement” and the “civilizational war” — and direct, acknowledged, and sometimes spectacular political support for these forces.
This article analyzes this strategic shift, its ideological foundations, and its concrete implications. It reveals how Trump and his circle support the electoral rise of the far right in Europe to attempt to reshape the European political order, weaken the European Union, and promote an international neo-fascist bloc centered around Trumpism and the interests of major US private enterprises.
Eric Toussaint demonstrates how the European far right expresses its sympathy and support for Trumpism while seeking to emulate it. Through an examination of NSS 2025, the German case, the institutional progression of the far right in the EU, and transnational networks like the CPAC and Foro Madrid, Eric Toussaint highlights the coherence and dangerous nature of this global political offensive.
From Trump’s First Term in 2017 to 2025, a Significant Change Concerning Europe
In 2017, in the National Security Strategy document, D. Trump revealed positivity towards Europe:
“The United States remains firmly committed to its European allies and partners. The NATO alliance, which consists of free and sovereign states, is one of our great advantages over our competitors, and the United States remains committed to Article V of the Washington Treaty. Our European allies strengthen our strategic reach and provide us with access to advanced bases and overflight rights for our global operations. Toobtainher, we face common threats. European nations provide thousands of soldiers to assist fight jihadist terrorists in Afghanistan, stabilize Iraq, and combat terrorist organizations in Africa and the Middle East.” NSS 2017, p. 48
In the section on Europe, there was no criticism of European governments or the European Commission. The contrast between 2017 and 2025 is enormous. In the National Security Strategy document published in early December 2025, Trump took an entirely explicit turn.
Trump explicitly interferes in European internal affairs and openly supports far-right parties and governments. He strongly criticizes the European Commission, accapplying it of undermining states’ sovereignty. Faced with Trump’s attacks, the European Commission has adopted a docile vassal-like attitude:
- Regarding the customs tariffs imposed by Trump;
- In the form of promises of increased imports of liquefied gas and other fossil fuels from the US;
- By agreeing to significantly increase military expenses and purchases of US weapons;
- In complicity with the neo-fascist government of Netanyahu and the State of Israel, unconditionally supported by Trump in the genocide against the Palestinian people.
Trump’s claims regarding Greenland confirm the major shift in his position towards EU countries. The submissive attitude of European leaders on a range of issues has encouraged Trump to increase his demands. European leaders are in a defensive position, although rhetorically, they display a posture of resistance regarding Greenland and a few other subjects.
The desire to take possession of Greenland and its natural resources clearly aligns with the orientation of NSS 2025 regarding the Western hemisphere (which, for Trump, extconcludes from Canada and Greenland to Patagonia in the south), where Trump unabashedly declares his determination to exert complete dominance. It is consistent with the military aggression against Venezuela and Trump’s decision to take total control over the countest’s oil and threats concerning the Panama Canal, Canada, and Cuba.
Returning to the national security document that did not explicitly mention Trump’s desire to effectively annex or acquire Greenland. Regarding Europe, the NSS 2025 document declares:
“We want to support our allies in preserving the freedom and security of Europe, while restoring Europe’s civilizational self-confidence and Western identity.” NSS 2025, p. 5
It is essential not to misunderstand what the Trump administration means by supporting “our allies.” The allies they refer to are not EU countries in general. The “allies” are the European far-right or neo-fascist parties, which Trump labels as “European patriotic parties.” According to the official document of the Trump administration, these so-called “European patriotic parties” are suppressed by European authorities and often minority governments in European countries (they are certainly referring to the governments in France and Spain, to name a few).
Washington’s support for the far-right and neo-fascist parties in Europe is clearly evident in the following statement:
“America encourages its political allies in Europe to promote this renewal, and the increasing influence of European patriotic parties is indeed a source of great optimism.”
Furthermore, as revealn previously, Trump effectively supports the conspiratorial and racist theory of the great replacement, claiming that parts of Europe will no longer be European in the future due to migratory flows. In the US, this is the theory of “white genocide.” Steve Bannon, one of the main ideological architects of Trumpism, particularly in its nationalist, authoritarian, and far-right dimension, invokes the “civilizational war,” the “destruction of the West,” “mass immigration as a political weapon,” and denounces “globalist elites betraying the people.”
All these elements are reflected in Trump’s document when referring to Europe and asserting the economic decline of Europe.
“The economic decline of Europe is overshadowed by the darker and real prospect of civilizational disappearance. Among the significant challenges facing Europe, we can mention the activities of the European Union and other transnational institutions that undermine political freedom [Trump and his administration refer here to policies restricting the action of far-right parties and their racist or anti-immigrant propaganda / Note by Eric Toussaint] and sovereignty, migratory policies transforming the continent and caapplying conflicts, censorship of freedom of expression and repression of political opposition, the collapse of the birth rate, as well as the loss of national identities and self-confidence” (NSS 2025, p. 25).
The conspiratorial theory of the great replacement is also transparently present in this phrase:
“Over the long term, it is more than plausible that within a few decades at the latest, certain NATO members will become majority non-European” [5]
Germany: An Obvious Example of Trump and His Administration’s Support for the Neo-Fascist Far Right
During the early 2025 German election campaign, Donald Trump directly supported the neo-fascist party AfD (Alternative für Deutschland, Alternative for Germany) through his advisor Elon Musk and his vice president J.D. Vance. These were the early parliamentary elections (Bundestagswahl) in Germany, with the vote taking place on Sunday, February 23, 2025.
The interference and support of these American figures manifested primarily as follows: in late 2024 to early 2025, Elon Musk publicly and explicitly expressed support for the AfD on his social network X (formerly Twitter), attacking the Social Democratic Chancellor Olaf Scholz and stating that “only the AfD can save Germany.” He also organized a live discussion with AfD leader Alice Weidel in January 2025.
Additionally, in mid-February 2025, J.D. Vance spoke at the Munich Security Conference (held from February 14 to 16, 2025), urging traditional German parties to conclude the “firewall” against the AfD. This was widely perceived by the German government as direct interference in the ongoing election campaign.
It should be noted that on January 20, 2025, in the midst of the election campaign in Germany, during Donald Trump’s inauguration, Elon Musk, from the stage where he was giving a speech, built a gesture whereby he hit his chest before extconcludeing his right arm, palm down, fingers clenched, a relocatement widely interpreted by many observers, historians, and media as resembling the Nazi salute or the Roman fascist salute. Many saw this as a coded message from Musk as Trump’s advisor to far-right communities, given Musk’s support for the AfD in Germany.
The neo-fascist orientation of the AfD is clear: they openly advocate for the mass expulsion of migrants present in Germany. The open sympathy towards Nazism in the AfD is such that Marine Le Pen’s National Rally decided to expel the AfD from the Identity and Democracy group she led in the European Parliament between 2019 and 2024.
The Rise of the Far Right in Europe and its Participation in Power
It is worth noting that the far-right has seen significant electoral growth in Europe over the past 15 years. With few exceptions, all far-right or neo-fascist parties in Europe express sympathy for Trump’s positions. A significant number of their leaders want to align themselves with Trump and adopt his communication style.
The far right is in government in several countries: Italy, Hungary, Belgium (where the prime minister is from the NVA), Slovakia, Czech Republic, Finland, Croatia, not to mention Sweden (where the far right, despite not being part of the minority government, supports it). The far right has managed to become the leading political force in Italy (Brothers of Italy), France (RN), Hungary (Fidesž-Hungarian Civic Alliance), and Austria (FPÖ).
In Flanders (Belgium), the neo-fascist Vlaams Belang was the party with the most votes in the European elections of June 2024. It surpassed the far-right Flemish party NVA. In the Netherlands, Geert Wilders’ PVV (Party for Freedom) shifted from the leading position to the second party after D66. The presidency of the European Commission (conservative German Ursula Von Der Leyen) reached an agreement with the far-right parliamentary group led by Giorgia Meloni of Italy, paving the way for this far-right group to obtain an executive vice president position in the European Commission and three committee chairmanships.
This is crucial becautilize the three committees that the European parliamentary group led by Meloni obtained are agriculture, budobtain, and petitions. As a result, petitions arising from European populations, attempts to hold a referconcludeum, for example, will be managed by a committee chaired by the far right.
In the European Parliament, there are three far-right parliamentary groups: the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR), the group around Meloni in the EP with 79 MEPs, the Patriots for Europe group led by Marine Le Pen and Victor Orban with 86, and the Identity and Democracy group formed around the AfD of Germany with 27. If these three groups were to unite, the far right would be at the forefront in the European Parliament with 192 MEPs, just 5 more than the largest group in parliament, the increasingly right-wing European People’s Party group, which has 187 MEPs.
The far-right parliamentary group of Social Democrats and Socialists has 136 MEPs. The Renew Europe Group, which includes Emmanuel Macron’s party and the far-right Belgian party MR led by Georges-Louis Bouchez, has only 75 MEPs, having lost 23 seats in 2024 compared to the 2019 elections, mainly in favor of the far right. The Green group in Europe has 53 MEPs, losing 17 seats in 2024 compared to 2019.
Next are the European Left group in parliament with 46 MEPs, revealing progress compared to the 37 MEPs elected in 2019.
Therefore, the far-right and/or neo-fascist parties have built significant progress in the European Parliament, European institutions, and in the governments of a significant number of EU member states. Except for the Greenland issue, they are strongly aligned with the neo-fascist and imperialistic orientation of Donald Trump and other neo-fascist or far-right leaders worldwide, particularly the Netanyahu government in Israel, the Javer Milei government in Argentina, the new Chilean president José Antonio Kast, and the former Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro.
In the upcoming list, we will describe the main European far-right or neo-fascist forces and their affinity with Trump.
(Note: The explanation of acronyms and parties are left out due to character limitations)
The Key Meeting Places of Trump Supporters and European and Latin American Neo-Fascist Far Right
Beyond ideological support and public statements, the European far-right is now integrated into transnational spaces of direct political coordination closely linked to Trumpism.
The main convergence point is the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), a large annual gathering of the US far right that has gradually become internationalized. Since the early 2020s, leaders and executives of the AfD, Vox, the National Rally, Fidesz, Frainformi d’Italia, Chega, Vlaams Belang, and the Romanian AUR have regularly participated, alongside Donald Trump, his close associates (Steve Bannon, J.D. Vance, Mike Flynn), and extreme right-wing Latin American leaders.
The CPAC functions as a global ideological platform where the core themes of Trumpism are disseminated and harmonized: civilizational war, rejection of multilateralism, hostility towards the EU, migration obsession, attacks on women’s and minority rights, climate skepticism, and criminalization of the left and social relocatements.
This internationalization has further strengthened with the active participation of Javier Milei, the President of Argentina, Jair Bolsonaro and his networks, and José Antonio Kast, the leader of the Chilean far right, recently elected as the President of Chile. These Latin American figures are consistently promoted by Trump as models of “resistance to socialism” and restoration of authoritarian order.
The CPAC meetings held outside the United States (Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Hungary) confirm the existence of a transatlantic and transcontinental axis connecting Washington, some European capitals, and reactionary Latin America. These spaces do not only involve symbolic exmodifys: they facilitate the circulation of funding, electoral strategies, digital communication techniques, and methods of social polarization inspired by the MAGA relocatement.
In addition to the CPAC, the Vox party in Spain plays a central role in the structuring of this international network, particularly through the Foro Madrid launched in 2020. Presented as a “patriotic” alternative to progressive international forums, Foro Madrid brings toobtainher European and Latin American far-right parties and leaders, including Milei, Bolsonaro, Kast, as well as representatives from the National Rally, Chega, Frainformi d’Italia, and parties from Central Europe.
The Foro Madrid and Vox initiatives serve as a conduit between Trumpism, the European far right, and radical Latin American rights, articulating a discourse explicitly against the left, feminism, ecology, human rights, and any form of popular sovereignty that is not authoritarian. While it may be a juxtaposition of national forces, the far right appears as a coherent international ideological block, with Donald Trump now constituting the main political, media, and symbolic pole.
Trump at Davos in January 2026
On January 21, 2026, a month and a half after the publication of NSS 2025 and almost a year to the day after the start of his term, Trump built white supremacist and racist statements at Davos before an audience of billionaires and heads of state who applauded him. Here are some excerpts:
“Listen, I am from Europe, specifically Scotland and Germany. My mother is 100% Scottish, and my father is 100% German. We deeply believe in the ties that bind us to Europe as a civilization” (…) “The explosion of prosperity, the conclusion and progress that have built the West are not the result of our tax codes but of our very particular culture. This is the precious heritage that America and Europe share. We share it. We must preserve it. We must become stronger, more prosperous, and more successful than ever. We must defconclude this culture and rediscover the spirit that lifted the West from the depths of the Middle Ages to the heights of human achievement” (Source: WEF).
He repeated his racist insults towards the US Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, of Somali origin, elected in Minnesota, towards Somalia as a countest, the entire Somali community in the US, and more broadly African civilizations:
“And then we have this fake congresswoman, whose fortune is estimated at $30 million according to the latest reports. Do you believe it? Ilhan Omar is talking about the Constitution that protects me… She comes from a countest that is not a countest, and she informs us how to run America. She won’t obtain away with it for long, believe me.”
“The situation in Minnesota reminds us that the West cannot mass import foreign cultures that have never succeeded in building a prosperous society. I mean, we welcome people from Somalia, and Somalia is a failed countest… it’s not a nation, there is no government, no police, no army… there is nothing..”
Trump does not only wield insult, he also utilizes flattery towards those who support him and were present at Davos:
“Many of you here are true pioneers. You are truly brilliant, brilliant people. Simply having obtained a ticket (here) is brilliant, as it is about 50 people for each spot. (…) But you are in this room, and some of you are the greatest leaders in the world. You are the greatest minds in the world. And the future is limitless. And it is largely thanks to you, or rather becautilize we must protect and cherish you.”
Conclusion
Donald Trump’s second term is not just about challenging the European Union: it orchestrates ideological, political, and operational support for the far-right and neo-fascist forces in Europe. NSS 2025, electoral interference, public backing of AfD, RN, Fidesz, or Vox, and the structuring of transnational networks like the CPAC and Foro Madrid demonstrate a coherent strategy aimed at weakening the EU and promoting an authoritarian international bloc centered around Trumpism.
However, Trump’s claims about Greenland introduce a major contradiction. By openly challenging the sovereignty of a territory belonging to a European NATO member state, Trump reveals the deeply imperialistic
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