Republicans are outspoken about certain geopolitical realities that suggest a shift in American attention away from Europe. Meanwhile, transatlantic relations are politicized, contributing to a divide across Europe itself, particularly under a Trump presidency. Governments in East-Central Europe have certain comparative advantages through defense spending at home and political ties to the White House. These are valuable, as they can help in easing transatlantic tensions under a second Trump term.
American internationalism faces challenges often attributed to Republicans. Indeed, conservatives are more outspoken when it comes to reshifting attention from Europe to East Asia [1] or the burdens of defense from the US to Europe. [2] These views reflect the reality that American geopolitics is primarily focused on the Indo-Pacific, particularly in the age of renewed great power competition. The latter idea has become ubiquitous, but its origins [3] were in the first Donald Trump presidency. The novelty of Trump’s foreign policy was that it brought a realist and often nationalist hammer to liberal and often idealist beliefs about international relations. Since Europe has been home for the latter, it is wary of a second Trump presidency.
While Donald Trump does use harsh language against Europeans, most of his complaints reflect frustrations that are decades old. The fact is that transatlantic relations are politicized: Western European leaders love to hate Republican presidents, while Democrats tend to overlook East-Central European leaders in the European Union (EU). In a certain sense, Donald Rumsfeld’s division of “old and new Europe” [4] remains relevant, especially under a Trump presidency. Donald Trump made his most important foreign policy speech in Warsaw, where he talked about defending the West [5] in 2017. As always, it was deemed controversial [6], but it also provided the basis for the Trump administration’s Europe strategy [7], which primarily focused on East-Central Europe. [8]
Trump’s foreign policy will continue to carry a big stick in many forms. Washington’s onshore balancing remains relevant in Europe, where the political value of allies may be a function of their respective defense investments. East-Central Europeans have an advantage here, as most outperform [9] their Western allies in terms of defense spending as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). These efforts can be turned into political gains. For example, in its final year, the first Trump presidency tried to decrease US troop numbers in Germany: while many saw this as an attempt to withdraw from Europe, it was aimed at repositioning some of those forces as new deployments to Poland. People in the Republican Party acknowledge [10] East-Central European merits in defense investment and call for similar American rewarding measures for the future.
Of course, the hard realities of great power competition remain, Ukraine’s fate in the face of Russian aggression or Europe’s relationship with China carries the potential of a further deteriorating security environment. The transatlantic alliance is likely to suffer frictions on these issues. Still, East-Central European allies may use their comparative advantages to help cooler heads prevail in Washington and Brussels, respectively. In other words, they can try to form bridges for transatlantic security and political discourse during Trump’s second term in office.
