Will Mark Rutte please just stop talking? The Secretary General of NATO, who gave birth to the entire continent last year by referring to Donald Trump as “Father,” continued his campaign of flattery at the most recent G7 meeting: “The action of the United States to prevent the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran and to destroy its ballistic missile capabilities improves security for all of us,” he told reporters.
Diplomats are paid to lie for their country, but this may be the biggest and most blatant lie ever told by a diplomat not named Sergey Lavrov. Even the most enthusiastic supporters of Trump’s war don’t believe this nonsense. One thing we can be sure of is that US action did not improve security for anyone, except possibly for Iran, and certainly not for the Europeans.
Not only have the Europeans suffered from high energy prices, but the result of the war is that Iran now controls the Strait of Hormuz and will for the foreseeable future. That means that European countries, like the Gulf countries and all other countries that depend on the sea route, will be at the mercy of Iran. Never mind the new “fees” that everyone will have to pay to Iran for problematic spending. Any nation that currently maintains sanctions against Iran will have to lift them quickly. When Tehran tells, say, Britain that the queues to get in and out of the sea are too long, and that the paperwork it gave to the Revolutionary Border Authority controlled by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is not quite right but can probably be fixed once the sanctions are lifted, what will London do?
If Rutte’s flattery of Trump actually worked, that would be one thing. To help save NATO: That’s Rutte’s reason for his self-defense. Unfortunately, Trump takes the adulation as his right. Giving to him satisfies his need for self-esteem and dominance, but he doesn’t buy anything. Trump will turn on an “ally” or “friend” in a heartbeat and with incredible malice. The latest victim, of course, is Bibi Netanyahu, who had more reason than Rutte or any European to believe that Trump was on her side. Rutte’s latest move came as almost the entire nation of Israel was crying out in shock at his sudden abandonment by Trump.
And the Trump administration’s response to Rutte’s flattery? The following day, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, speaking at NATO headquarters, informed allies that Washington was beginning a six-month review “to review the US military posture and base in Europe” with the clear intention of continuing what has already become a large and consistent presence of US forces on the continent. He took the opportunity to punish the Europeans again for failing to help in the Iran war which the Trump administration did without consulting the allies and which has now turned into a conflict. Rutte’s answer? “I’m glad he’s doing this.”
We all understand the difficult situation in Europe. It takes time to get used to the fact that the US is no longer a reliable security partner, to say the least. It does not want to clash with the United States, and possibly face more severe penalties, when it makes such changes and when the threat from Russia appears to be increasing. Above all, it does not want to jeopardize the little remaining aid that the United States gives to Ukraine. European leaders also live in fear of additional punitive taxes.
Yet one thing should be clear by now: Trump tends to capitulate when faced with strong opposition—whether it’s China’s trade retaliation, Iran’s relentless insurgency, or the opposition of ordinary Americans in Minnesota. Those who appease him, however, find themselves in an endless stream of concessions and self-deprecation, because whatever you did for Trump yesterday is forgotten today.
The European attitude from the beginning has been appeasing. Instead of rallying to retaliate against Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs last year, for example, Europe, with an economy as large as China’s, faltered. Instead of responding to the bullying and insults of the Trump administration and self-respecting people worthy of proud nations, Europe’s attitude has been. Thank you, sir. Can I get another one?
This strategy will not work. In fact, it has the opposite effect, as Hegseth’s latest announcement shows. Europeans need to understand that right now and for at least the next few years they live in a world of three hunting empires. Trump is as likely to seize Greenland in the next two years as Xi Jinping to take action against Taiwan. Europeans will either be puppets of those empires or learn to manage themselves.
What Europe does matters to the rest of us. As the United States sinks deeper into authoritarianism, which may culminate in the Trump administration’s attempt to overturn the results of this fall’s congressional elections, Europe right now may be the last best hope for liberal democracy. Those of us who care about keeping liberalism alive need the Europeans to start defending it against all its enemies—in Moscow, Beijing, and Washington.
