World War Trump

by Hall Gardner

  American threats not to support NATO and Brexit, alongside Russian threats to Ukraine and eastern Europe, could then press Germany and the new European Union (without the United Kingdom) to forge tighter political-economic, if not military, ties with China, with which Germany has already established a “special relationship,”26 in which China believes that Berlin will strengthen its influence in the European Union to China's political and economic advantage. Germany has, for example, been lobbying the European Union to put an end to the EU arms embargo placed on China since the June 1989 repression of the Chinese democracy movement. In exchange for the European Union ending its arms ban, Beijing has promised greater finance to European countries, and greater trade and investment opportunities. Beijing has been investing heavily, for example, in nuclear energy plants in the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland, in rivalry with both the United States and Russia, and Beijing is looking to the Bulgarian nuclear energy market as well. Because the United Kingdom had been one of the strongest supporters of the arms embargo on China, the lack of a British presence in the European Union could then open the door to closer European-Chinese defense relations.27 Such an approach would ostensibly be intended to attempt to draw China away from closer defense ties to Russia, but to the chagrin of the Japanese, while it could be interpreted as an act of “encirclement” by Moscow. Such an EU-China defense linkage could occur if NATO does start to fall apart, and assuming that Germany and the new European Union (without the United Kingdom) cannot reach a separate accord with Russia over Ukraine, among other EU-Russia disputes.

  Prior to Trump, the Obama administration had been encouraging Germany, France, and the Europeans to look toward Japan and India for closer political-economic ties, including arms sales—despite Germany's already close ties to China. Closer German-Japanese political-economic relations in Europe and the Indo-Pacific would then represent a counterpoint to China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which seeks to expand Chinese trade and investment between Asia and Europe.28 Both Moscow and Beijing, however, see this approach as seeking to forge a new “encircling” alliance in Europe and in the Indo-Pacific. (See chapters 6 and 9.)

  IMMIGRATION INTO EUROPE

  The general financial crisis in the European Union since 2008, coupled with the immigrant crisis, and US and EU sanctions on Russia, has been making it even more difficult for the European Union to function—as a number of states have decided to strengthen their borders. In mid-2016, among EU countries, Hungary possessed the most asylum applicants per capita, followed by Sweden and Germany. In terms of numbers, Germany has accepted the most migrants, then Sweden, Italy, France, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. Ironically, Germany's decision to take in at least 1.1 million immigrants, due, in large part, to Germany's growing need for labor, has been criticized by Trump, even though this is a German, and not an American, affair, and should be of no concern to Trump.

  One of the main issues that has caused an anti-EU backlash has accordingly been the failure of the European Union to deal effectively with the post-2015 immigration crisis from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, and other North African countries. Waves of immigrants followed in the wake of the Arab Spring movements in 2011, the French- and UK- led military intervention in Libya (backed by NATO) in March 2011, and then the Syrian civil war, which began in 2011. More than a million refugees arrived in Europe in 2015 alone.29 The failure of the European Union to check the wave of refugees at the edges of the European Union in Greece and Italy, as well as into Hungary through the Balkans, then led many European states to close their national borders. This led to the building of a whole series of national walls/fences/barriers in Europe, as generally demanded by rising right-wing nationalist groups.

  Ironically, refugees were blocked in Calais, France, unable to travel to the more liberal United Kingdom, where they believe they will find jobs—as the United Kingdom was not part of Schengen group that oversaw immigration policy inside the European Union. The large immigrant camps in France were then broken up by force by the government of François Hollande, and most immigrants were forced to move to different locations or flee the country. France was in the ironic situation of trying to keep in the country refugees who did not want to stay! Here, although fears of immigration were a factor in Brexit, it was largely opposition to immigration from eastern Europe that was believed to have impacted the jobs of English citizens—and not the fear of non-European refugees who had entered the Schengen zone of continental Europe.

  SANCTIONS ON MOSCOW

  By contrast with east European states (with the exception of Serbia, Hungary, Slovakia, and perhaps Bulgaria and the Czech Republic), many western European states (Germany, Italy, and France, among others) have generally wanted to maintain positive relations with Russia. These states were initially reluctant to place strong sanctions on Moscow's banking, oil, and defense sectors in 2014.

  For its part, the United Kingdom has generally taken the toughest stance on Russia in part due to the poisoning of former Russian agent Alexander Litvinenko. But British legal investigations into that affair, plus sanctions placed on Russia in the energy sector, have not, for example, prevented British Petroleum (BP) from making profitable deals with the Russian energy firm Rosneft by 2016.30 Likewise, German Chancellor Merkel has nevertheless insisted that the United States and the European Union sustain sanctions on Russia in response to its annexation of Crimea and political-military interference in eastern Ukraine, while likewise denouncing Putin for his support of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad.31

  Europeans who argue against sanctions generally argue that sanctions have no impact on Russian policy in Ukraine. Contrary to the Americans, who trade less with Moscow, many businesses did not want to lose access to Russian markets. And when Moscow unexpectedly placed counter-sanctions on European agricultural exports to Russia, those counter-sanctions generally hurt Europeans more than Americans. European farmers have subsequently been hurt significantly by counter-sanctions placed by Moscow on European farm products. Trade between Russia and the European Union consequently dropped by over €180 billion between 2013 and 2015 while EU farmers and agricultural cooperatives claim that they have lost their main export market worth €5.5 billion. EU agriculture was additionally hurt by a general drop in Chinese demand due to a downswing in the Chinese economy.32

  While some US auto companies and banks have been hurt by sanctions on Moscow, a number of American food companies, including MacDonald's, Yum! and Burger King, and the agro-industrial firm, Cargill, have actually been benefiting from them—as Moscow began to engage in import substitution (which it claimed to be beneficial) while also seeking to import food products from Brazil, Argentina, and Asia.33 Israeli agriculture has also hoped to benefit—a factor drawing Israel and Russia closer together.34 The enterprises of states that do not agree to placing sanctions on Russia, most importantly China, but also Japan, Turkey, Brazil, Argentina, Qatar, and South Africa, have begun to benefit.

  In June 2016, the German and Austrian foreign ministers began to have second thoughts. They stated that EU sanctions on Russia should be gradually phased out as the peace process progresses. This represented an effort to reverse previous positions that sanctions could be lifted only once the Minsk peace plan is fully implemented. Both France and Greece have likewise sought a change in policy toward sanctions as well. EU sanctions have reduced Russian GDP by 1 to 1.5 percent, and the EU's own GDP by 0.1 percent. The EU has lost an additional 0.3 percent of its GDP as a consequence of the Russian counter-embargo on EU agricultural products. The Baltic states, Finland, and Poland are paradoxically the most supportive of sanctions but also the ones to suffer most from them. This is while Italy, for example, has been less harmed.

  For its part, the United States, which most strongly supports sanctions, has lost a mere 0.005 percent of its GDP because of its own sanctions on Russia and the counter-sanctions imposed by Russia on the United States. Yet despite the harm done to European agriculture, EU ambassadors nevertheles
s agreed to first extend their economic sanctions against Russia to January 2017, and then later to July 2017, and again to January 2018.35 These renewed sanctions were due to Moscow's perceived lack progress on Minsk II accords that has been intended to establish peace in eastern Ukraine—and even if not all the problems can be blamed on Moscow for not following through on the Minsk accords.

  THE RISE OF ANTI-NATO ANTI-EU MOVEMENTS

  The US and European financial crisis since 2008 has led a number of left-wing and right-wing political parties to demand that their countries drop the Euro as a currency, dump their creditors, and then exit the European Union—rather than attempting to further reform the European Union itself. The Austrian, Dutch, and French elections have, however, appeared to have stemmed the tide of nationalist-populist movements for the moment, but they might not be able to hold out for long—if political-economic conditions do not eventually improve in the European Union as a whole. In this regard, the rise of the German far right, which seeks to break monetary ties with France and other countries, in the September 2017 elections is very worrying. In general, both far-right and far-left movements have gained in strength as a result of the decline of traditional parties, due in large part to the rise in social inequity and the decline of the middle classes.

  In 2016, in the Austrian presidential elections, the Green Party and European Federalist candidate Alexander Van der Bellen just barely defeated far-right party Freedom Party candidate Norbert Hofer. In the Netherlands, in the March 2017 elections, three centrist parties (People's Party for Freedom and Democracy, VVD; Labour Party, PvdA; and Democrats 66, D66)—which are all pro-European and pro-NATO, but with some differences on immigration—ran against the nationalist anti-EU Party for Freedom (PVV) of Geert Wilders. The PVV only won 13.1 percent of the votes, but due to the pluralist party system, the PVV still became the second largest party.

  In April 2017, Emmanuel Macron of the new, liberal Federalist party En Marche! (Onwards!) won the French presidential elections by 67 percent. But Macron will nevertheless face an uphill battle to obtain popular support for his proposed liberal market-oriented reforms. The far-left presidential candidate, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, refused, for example, to publicly endorse Macron against Marine Le Pen in the second round of the French elections and called for an international conference to adjudicate border conflicts in eastern Europe. Along with the far right, Mélenchon has continued to oppose Macron's liberal labor policies, calling for strikes in September 2017.36 (See discussion on France, this chapter.)

  Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose pro-immigration policies were also denounced by Donald Trump, won her fourth term in September 2017. The Social Democrats (SPD) had surged briefly in popularity since choosing left-wing Martin Schulz to run against Angela Merkel, but he nevertheless lost the elections. The SPD then announced that it would no longer sustain an alliance with Merkel's CDU (Christian Democratic Union of Germany). This will make it difficult for Merkel to forge a coalition in the Bundestag particularly as the extreme right-wing party, Alternative for Germany party (AfD), gained roughly 13 percent of the Bundestag. The CDU will hold 246 MPs in the Bundestag, and the SPD, which scored poorly, has 153. The right-wing AfD took 94 seats; the FDP, 80; the Left, 69; and the Greens, 67.37

  The rise of the far right in Germany negates what were otherwise more or less positive signs. In addition, there is a real concern that Trump's policies of economic nationalism, his support for Brexit, his strong criticisms of Germany, and his pretended support for the European Union, plus the general financial crisis, combined with sanctions on Moscow—and US pressure on NATO members to spend more on defense—are all encouraging a number of anti-EU, anti-NATO left-wing, populist, and nationalist parties to rise to power in Europe. These movements have been given ideological support by Steve Bannon, one of Trump's advisers, who has remained behind the scenes even after he was pressed out of the US National Security Council in April 2017.38 And behind a number of these populist movements, there are a number of even more overtly fascist/ racist movements that could follow in their footsteps.

  After winning the presidency, Trump had met with Nigel Farage of the right-wing UK Independence Party, even before meeting with Theresa May, the British Prime Minister.39 Trump himself gave far-right-wing candidate Marine Le Pen a tacit endorsement just before the April 2017 French presidential elections, by saying that she was “strongest on borders, and she's the strongest on what's been going on in France…. Whoever is the toughest on radical Islamic terrorism, and whoever is the toughest at the borders, will do well in the election.”40 Trump's statement proved completely wrong, since the liberal-centrist Emmanuel Macron won the election.

  Some of these right-wing and left-wing movements are backed by Moscow; others oppose Moscow. But both left-wing and right-wing movements have stated their opposition to NATO and the European Union. On the right, these include the Front National (France); FPÖ (Austria); Golden Dawn (Greece); KSCM (Czech Republic); and Jobbik (Hungary). On the left: Front de Gauche (France); AKEL (Cyprus); and Die Linke (Germany).41

  In 2014, in Hungary, for example, the pro-Russian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán's nationalist Fidesz-KNDP party had won 44.5 percent of the votes, but the far-right Movement for a Better Hungary, Jobbik, won 20.54 of the vote, meaning far-right-wing parties possess some 65 percent of the vote in that country. In 2015, in Poland, the right-wing Law and Justice Party has begun to challenge the separation of powers between the state and legal system. While anti-Russian and pro-NATO, Poland's Prime Minister Beata Szydło may also oppose the European Union's new project—a European Pillar of Social Rights.42

  Many left-wing movements tend to take a pro-Russian stance on many issues, even if Putin's politics are far from being “left-wing.” European left-wing movements have gained strength following the 2008 financial crisis, but they tend to lose support on account of the fear of a massive influx of foreign immigrants entering Europe. Among left-wing movements, European United Left/Nordic Green Left (GUE/NGL) in the European Parliament generally supports the Russian position in the Council of Europe, and in OSCE general assemblies—especially on issues related to Ukraine and Syria. Greece's Syriza party, in coalition with the right-wing populist ANEL, often backs Russia on energy, foreign affairs, and defense. The left-wing Podemos rapidly became the third largest party in Spain since 2014, while Die Linke is strong in eastern Germany. The Cyprus Communist AKEL party has obtained as much as 30 percent of the vote in parliamentary elections. Sinn Fein, the political wing of the IRA, is one of the top three political parties in Ireland.43 In September 2017, as previously mentioned, the populist Alternative for Germany (AfG) party entered the Bundestag for the first time, with ninety-four seats.

  Moreover, given the fact that the far-right nationalist-populist parties possess very different goals, such movements will not be able to forge a unified policy—except for their general opposition to the European Union and NATO. There are, however, a few nationalist parties (primarily from eastern Europe, but also the Scottish, who want to remain in the European Union once the United Kingdom leaves) who want to not abolish the European Union but reform it. Most of the Euro-nationalist parties thus oppose EU bureaucracy but disagree on other issues. The Alternative for Germany (AfG) party, for example, regards Le Pen's National Front (NF) as a national socialist movement in that the NF does not believe in the free-market, pro-business, and national-libertarian policies that the German AfG party supports. The AfG tends to be anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim, anti-EU federalism, anti-NATO, anti-Ukraine, and pro-Russian.

  In general, far-right parties in countries in close proximity to Russia tend to oppose Russian influence, while far-right parties farther away from Russia are generally more supportive of Russian interests. Far-right parties in Finland, Latvia, and Romania tend to be hostile to Russia, while those in Germany, Croatia, Denmark, Hungary, Poland, and Sweden tend to be more open or neutral. Pro-Russian parties in Estonia are influential due to strong ethnic Russian influenc
e, but these groups are not necessarily pro-Putin. Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and Slovakia's Robert Fico have taken pro-Russian stances, and so has the Czech Republic's new prime minister, Andrej Babis, the billionaire “Czech Trump.”

  Other right-wing parties tend to be strongly pro-Russian in the rest of Europe—most crucially, the National Front in France and the UK Independence Party (UKIP) and the British National Party (BNP) in the United Kingdom; in Germany, the Alternative for Germany (AfG) and the Nationalist Democratic Party (NPD); and in Italy, the Northern League. Even the populist Italian Five Star Movement (M5S), which claims to go beyond left-wing and right-wing schisms, has shifted in a pro-Russian direction. A M5S foreign-policy spokesperson stated that M5S was neither pro-Russian nor pro-American, but it has opposed NATO “aggression” and called for the end of EU sanctions against Russia. It has also called for the strengthening of intelligence ties between the European Union and Russia.44

  Like left-wing movements, right-wing nationalist movements have been gaining political capital from high unemployment. But these nationalist movements have also been gaining support due to the failure of the European Union and the Schengen system of border controls inside Europe to deal with the post-2015 immigration crisis.45

  FRANCE AS THE KEYSTONE OF THE EUROPEAN UNION

  The fate of the European Union could well depend on the nature of French politics in the coming five to ten years, after liberal-centrist pro-EU Emmanuelle Macron was elected president in May 2017. The United Kingdom's decision to leave the European Union has put the focus on French politics. It is now France that could eventually determine the future of Europe, as the outcome of the September 2017 German elections means that Merkel will probably have to concentrate on domestic issues, with the rise of the far-right AfG party and the alienation of the SPD. Macron and Merkel appeared to have established a good working relationship in support of a more effective European Union, but may profoundly disagree on the details. Berlin has thus far opposed French proposals to integrate European budgets, to create a European Monetary Fund and a minister of finance and the economy to surpass the economic crisis, coupled with a common European defense. Instead Germany, contrary to French counsel, has sought to impose austerity on Greece, for example, to the benefit of German banks, for example, with Greek airports and ports under German administration.46