Merci, Mr. Trump

Trump still hasn’t realized that he is no longer an outsider or counterpower. He is now the power and has the power: He cannot have his cake and eat it too. He is the president of the United States. He speaks for the United States. He has at his disposition the physical and brutal powers of military and economic coercion.

He is now the “status quo.” He is no longer the rebel who wants to conquer the fort. He is installed in the fort. And now, when he speaks, he does not speak just for himself. Put differently, he inherited all the antipathies of the United States as a great power.

Now, when he speaks badly of the European Union, it is not a personal opinion of someone who likes to be politically correct.* It is speaking badly as the president of a superpower about another superpower who is more than a friend, a rival. Politically, it could not be more different.

The Trump effect is now to the contrary. The European Union is strengthened when it is attacked. The same thing happened with the automobile industry in Germany. The more Trump railed against it, the more Europeans rooted for it.

The official opposition of the United States, in the person of President Trump, will be an injection of adrenaline in the heart of the European Union. By making the U.S. more isolationist and protectionist than ever, Trump is challenging and directly stimulating the political project of the EU, giving them a boost toward unity, something the EU dramatically lacked.

The EU can learn to live without the U.S. or the United Kingdom more easily than vice versa. Ultimately, they are just two countries, more and more closed off and monotonic.

*Translator’s note: The author may mean to say: “someone who likes to be politically incorrect.”