Guarding Vital Interests: European Cohesion Amidst a Potential Trump Re-election – COMMENTARY 

The prospect of another Trump presidency is already pushing Europeans closer together to defend what they perceive as their vital interests.

A few weeks ago, I began a column for the Guardian by saying that the European Union is never quite as bad or quite as good as it looks.

Of course, we can all imagine events that could test the resilience of the EU in the next few years. One of the earliest is the potential return of Donald Trump as a US president hostile or indifferent to NATO, and who could undermine 75 years of deterring war by casually saying he wouldn’t risk American lives to defend a far-away little European country. This might trigger an uncoordinated and undignified rush by European states to seek bilateral defence deals with the US, sensing that NATO’s guarantee was, if not worthless, not reliable. That’s what happened to some extent during his first term, with Poland leading the way, offering to host a “Fort Trump” for a US armoured division that never came.

EU nationalists have a worse bark than bite when it comes to NATO unity

However, Trump’s return is more likely to give new urgency to joint European defence efforts through the EU and NATO. It could also bring the UK and the EU to agree on cooperation in defence and security policy as the trauma of Brexit subsides and a new British government takes office.