{"id":38466,"date":"2025-09-23T11:34:06","date_gmt":"2025-09-23T11:34:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/38466\/"},"modified":"2025-09-23T11:34:06","modified_gmt":"2025-09-23T11:34:06","slug":"trump-is-waging-culture-war-on-europe-by-promoting-rightwing-allies-report-finds-european-union","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/38466\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump is waging culture war on Europe by promoting rightwing allies, report finds | European Union"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Trump administration is waging a culture war on Europe<\/a> by aggressively promoting the Maga movement\u2019s political and ideological allies on the continent and publicly humiliating the EU on the world stage, a joint report by the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) and European Cultural Foundation has concluded.<\/p>\n

The study argues<\/a> that the US president is actively seeking to interfere in European elections, transform the transatlantic relationship toward conservative values and rally Europe\u2019s rightwing populists around the theme of free speech.<\/p>\n

The report suggests EU leaders\u2019 divisions, hesitations and \u201cflatter, appease, distract\u201d approach to dealing with Trump have only encouraged such treatment.<\/p>\n

Using research and polling from all 27 EU member states, it argues that enough of them have pro-European governments \u2013 and European public sentiment is strong enough \u2013 for the bloc to stand up and \u201cdefend a Europe that writes its own script\u201d.<\/p>\n

The report likens Europe\u2019s position to that of the central character in The Truman Show, who eventually realises he is in a TV series whose only priority is to boost its ratings, and must decide whether to leave the comfort of the only reality he knows.<\/p>\n

It argues EU leaders spend too much energy reacting to crises scripted by Trump and his European allies \u2013 such as Viktor Orb\u00e1n in Hungary, Giorgia Meloni<\/a> in Italy or Robert Fico in Slovakia \u2013 from tariff threats and free speech rows to security spending and migration scares.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn Trump\u2019s culture war, Europe itself is the target,\u201d said the ECFR\u2019s Pawel Zerka, pinpointing JD Vance\u2019s February 2025 accusation<\/a> that Europe was \u201cretreating from fundamental shared values\u201d as the moment the culture war was openly declared.<\/p>\n

Vance\u2019s speech to the Munich Security Conference revealed Washington\u2019s intent to interfere in elections, frame US-EU relations as a \u201cvalues divide\u201d and make free speech the rallying call for parties that espouse the Maga cause in Europe, Zerka said.<\/p>\n

Trump has since \u201cfurther revealed his hand in this regard by excluding EU leaders from talks on the future of Ukraine, attacking mainstream political parties across the continent and extorting the Brussels institutions in trade negotiations\u201d, he added.<\/p>\n

The report cites Poland as an example of Trump trying to \u201cmove the ideological centre of gravity of Europe\u2019s politics\u201d by welcoming Karol Nawrocki, the nationalist presidential candidate, to the White House and boosting him on social media.<\/p>\n

It also cites the US state department staffer Samuel Samson\u2019s appeal<\/a> to \u201ccivilisational allies in Europe\u201d, allegedly \u201ca hotbed of digital censorship, mass migration, restrictions on religious freedom and other assaults on democratic self-governance\u201d.<\/p>\n

Zerka argued that the culture war was played out at two levels: an ideological conflict over the values that underlie European politics, but also \u201ca struggle for Europe\u2019s dignity, credibility and identity as an autonomous actor on the global stage\u201d.<\/p>\n

Brussels and national capitals need to \u201caccept they are in a culture war \u2013 with Europe as the target\u201d and act accordingly, he said. \u201cThis does not mean Europe should provoke Trump at every turn. Sometimes buying time is necessary.\u201d<\/p>\n

But by playing to its strengths, the bloc can \u201cthrive rather than suffer in a world order whose destabilisation has been accelerated by the US president\u201d.<\/p>\n

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The study suggests conditions are \u201cripe\u201d for European leaders to walk off Trump\u2019s \u201cfilm set\u201d. Polling shows European sentiment \u2013 the sense of belonging to a common space, sharing a common future and subscribing to common values \u2013 is strong, it says.<\/p>\n

Eurobarometer data shows citizen trust in the EU is at its highest since 2007 and has risen in 12 countries \u2013 most sharply in Sweden, France, Denmark and Portugal \u2013 since Trump returned to the White House. Majorities in almost all feel attached to the EU.<\/p>\n

Hardly any party now wants to leave the EU, and majorities in all but three countries (Romania, Poland and the Czech Republic) say the role of the EU in protecting Europe\u2019s citizens against global crises and security risks must become more important.<\/p>\n

ECFR polling from May also revealed widespread support for greater European defence spending and military autonomy from the US, as well as a growing feeling that Europe and the US represented \u201ctwo different models of democracy\u201d.<\/p>\n

While this picture is far from uniform, Zarka argued that no member state will escape the impact of the culture war, urging even eurosceptic leaders to realise the EU is \u201cthe only framework in which they can protect national sovereignty and prosperity\u201d.<\/p>\n

National leaders should reject flattery as a strategy towards Trump, even if it increases transatlantic tensions, and the European Commission \u201cmust be bold\u201d and deploy instruments such as the Digital Services Act and trade tools.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018It\u2019s culture, stupid!\u2019 urgently needs to enter the mindset of European leaders,\u201d said Andr\u00e9 Wilkens of the European Cultural Foundation. \u201cEuropean sentiment is not abstract utopianism. It\u2019s about real feelings for Europe and Europeans\u2019 readiness to fight for them.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Trump administration is waging a culture war on Europe by aggressively promoting the Maga movement\u2019s political and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":38467,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-38466","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38466","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38466"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38466\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38467"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}