President Trump’s new course toward normalizing relations with Russia and achieving a political settlement of the Ukrainian conflict has taken the authorities of major Western European countries by surprise.
Republicans, and even some Democrats, argue that many European countries’ defense spending is insufficient. In addition, the American “right wing” reproaches Europeans for buying much less from America than they export — as a result, the US “gives Europe more than $200 billion a year.” This circumstance is the basis for Trump’s new tariffs on European goods.
On June 1, The Washington Post reported that the Trump administration had stepped up its criticism of its allies in Western Europe on issues of freedom of speech and other democratic ideals. The State Department accused Europe of “becoming a hotbed of digital censorship, mass migration, restrictions on religious freedom, and numerous other attacks on democratic self-government.”
A group of American diplomats recently embarked on a foreign trip announced as part of the Trump administration’s efforts to promote freedom of speech in Europe: on the agenda was a meeting in France to discuss a court ruling barring right-wing leader Marine Le Pen from seeking public office.
The State Department has informed Congress that it is creating a new office for “natural rights,” one of whose main goals will be to develop a framework “for criticizing the erosion of freedom of speech in Europe and other developed countries.”
The ruling circles of European powers are being blocked by anti-Trump opposition within the US
Official figures in the US administration are increasingly speaking out in support of those European leaders who are now referred to as “far right”. The recent election victory in Poland of nationalist candidate K. Nawrocki, who was supported by Trump, was perceived in European countries as a victory for supporters of the “Make America Great Again” movement. In this regard, the assessment given by Bloomberg on June 2, 2025, of the results of the presidential elections in Poland is quite symptomatic: in fact, they were the result of “dual pressure from Trump and Putin’s Russia, and European leaders have less and less time to understand why voters are listening to the leaders of the “Make America Great Again” movement.
It is noteworthy that recent polls in major European countries show a decline in confidence in the current authorities. For example, Germans are increasingly doubting the ability of the new Chancellor, F. Merz, to lead the country out of the crisis. An editorial in the French newspaper Le Figaro on May 26 about the end of Macronism noted: “France is a huge construction site with no clear results, complete disorder, and increasing immobility.” In the UK, criticism is mounting of the Labour government, which, instead of tackling rising inflation and other problems of the economic crisis (declining labor productivity), is increasingly focusing on foreign policy issues.
All this is leading some American and European political scientists to conclude that there is a possibility of “outbreaks of violent unrest” and even civil war.
The current governments of major European countries are focusing their policies on an anti-Russian campaign, declaring Moscow to be almost the main existential threat: they are trying by any means to influence Trump, trying to convince him that only the introduction of new sanctions will “force Putin to seek reconciliation.”
It is noteworthy that all these maneuvers are causing serious concern among the countries of the Global South, because, as the Saudi newspaper Arab News noted on June 2 this year, “the deadlock in relations between Trump and Putin is heightening fears of a global conflict.”
Mohammed Amer, Syrian publicist and analyst
