Trump warns European civilisation faces ‘erasure’

[WASHINGTON] The Trump administration said that European civilisation is at risk of “erasure” as a result of decades of economic decline, political censorship and immigration.

In a 29-page National Security Strategy published on Friday (Dec 5) and signed by President Donald Trump, the administration said that Europe’s cultural and political failures pose a bigger threat to the continent’s way of life than its poor economic performance.

“This economic decline is eclipsed by the real and more stark prospect of civilisational erasure,” the report said. “Should present trends continue, the continent will be unrecognisable in 20 years or less.”

Almost a year after Trump returned to office, the ideological divisions between the US and its traditional allies in Europe have become stark.

The White House has lashed out over European Union regulation of US tech companies, offered public support to far-right parties across the continent and threatened to cut off support for Ukraine unless Kyiv makes sweeping concessions to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The US has also been encouraging some European nations to hold up an EU plan to release some 90 billion euros (S$136 billion) of new funding that Ukraine needs to maintain its fight against the Russian invasion, according to diplomats who spoke to Bloomberg.

The report blames the EU for many of Europe’s problems, saying the bloc has undermined political freedoms and failed to clamp down on immigration that the US said is fuelling social tensions. The report also attacks what it calls censorship and restrictions on opposition political movements.

The US’s main goals in Europe will be to secure a quick end to the war in Ukraine, to cultivate “resistance to Europe’s current trajectory within European nations,” to open up the continent’s markets for US companies and to prevent the further expansion of Nato, the report says.

“Europe remains strategically and culturally vital to the US,” the report said. “Not only can we not afford to write Europe off – doing so would be self-defeating for what this strategy aims to achieve.”

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The National Security Strategy, meant to be released every year, carries no legal weight but signals White House priorities around the globe.

Past iterations under former President Joe Biden and in Trump’s first term focused on the threat posed by China and other US adversaries rather than directing US criticism at allies in Europe.

In this strategy, the language on US adversaries including China and Russia is muted.

It said Trump has “reversed” three decades of “mistaken” policy after “China got rich and powerful, and used its wealth and power to its considerable advantage.” The new US strategy doubles down on a Trump pledge to “rebalance” the economic relationship with China by working with allies to counter state subsidies, intellectual property theft and influence operations.

The document said deterring a Chinese invasion of Taiwan remains a priority, but the US military “cannot, and should not have to, do this alone,” stressing that countries in the region need to increase defence spending and allow the US military more access to ports and other facilities. “Our allies must step up and spend – and more importantly do – much more for collective defence,” it reads.

The strategy barely mentions Russia’s invasion of Ukraine until some references near the very end – and even then, the document takes swipes at European leaders while saying that solving the war is key to having “strategic stability” with Russia. BLOOMBERG