With a focus on Ukraine, NATO’s future, and the growing uncertainties surrounding American foreign policy, Wolf outlines a stark reality: the U.S. is drifting away from its role as the protector of the West, leaving Europe to fend for itself. He explores Trump’s admiration for Putin, his economic policies, and the seismic changes within Europe as it prepares to confront a world where American support is no longer guaranteed. What follows is a profound look at the challenges facing Europe, the unpredictability of the path the U.S. will follow from here, and the possible reordering of global alliances.
I want to begin with something that you wrote some days ago in your column in the Financial Times. The title was ‘The U.S. is now the enemy of the West.’ What do you mean by that, Martin? It’s a little scary.
Well, it’s a scary situation. Essentially that was written in response to something that has become clearer still since then: that Ukraine is effectively on its own. That the U.S. has withdrawn or is in the process of withdrawing military support and that, if it should agree some sort of ceasefire with Russia, there won’t be a peace—there’s no question of that. The protection of the ceasefire and the responsibility for containing Russian aggression will fall to Europe. That the U.S. is no longer in fact committed to NATO raises profound questions about whether the Article 5 commitment in the North Atlantic Treaty is still valid. The U.S., its vice president in particular but the administration as a whole, has tried very forcefully to interfere in European politics in support of the hard right, which is obviously hostile to the dominant democratic opinion in Europe. It has announced its intention to start an enormous trade war with Europe. It hasn’t launched it yet, but it seems very likely that it will, and with extremely high tariffs. These are not the actions of a friendly power, and certainly not of an ally. These are the actions of a country that is planning—at best—to cut itself loose and—at worst—to actually go over to the other side and support Russia and Russian ambitions, in particular. That’s what I meant.
But why? Can you understand the reasons behind that decision? I understand the cutting loose, yes, but favoring Russia and Vladimir Putin? What is the goal of supporting Moscow?
Well, that’s a very good question. There are a lot of things about current American policy that are quite difficult for conventional thinkers to understand, because they seem so foolish. I’ll start with what we are seeing. I don’t know what is in Donald Trump or JD Vance’s heads, but I think it is a combination of several things. First of all, I believe that they and many people in their movement prefer Putin’s Russia to Europe. They are very attracted by his form of right-wing authoritarian nationalist government. It’s pretty clear to me that quite a few people in this broad right-wing American nationalist, Christian nationalist movement think of Putin as a great Christian leader, laughable as that may seem. Second, Trump has never concealed his personal admiration for Putin. He has referred to him as a genius. He, famously in his first term, opted to take Putin’s view in a discussion they had rather than that of his own intelligence services. He has always been opposed to the military support given to Ukraine in this war and has never concealed that. So, I think there are both ideological sympathies and personal admiration. Some people say, though I don’t think there’s any evidence for it, that he owes things to Russia. Certainly, it’s very likely that Russian interference in social media and so forth helped him, but I think the most interesting hypothesis—and I repeat that I am describing what we see here, because working out what goes on in Donald Trump’s soul is really difficult to do—is that he or some people around him want to do a reverse Nixon-Kissinger. Which is to say, just as Nixon and Kissinger separated China from Russia, he would now like to separate Russia from China as part of his anti-Chinese strategy. If the price of that includes handing Ukraine back to Russia, that doesn’t matter to him. He dislikes Zelensky; he dislikes weak countries and weak people. That’s obvious: if he sees someone weaker than he is, he wants to step on him, or her for that matter. It is perfectly plausible that they have that ambition. Whether it can be realized, I have no idea—though I have a powerful expectation it cannot. But that, at least, is a not implausible, realpolitik take on what he’s doing. He thinks Russia would be a valuable ally in any confrontation with China, and I suspect a number of people around him think the same. If that means sacrificing Ukraine, or even parts of Eastern Europe, I don’t think that would worry them very much.
In this environment, what can the EU and the United Kingdom do together? We see that because the UK is in some way turning back to Europe, due to Donald Trump and the U.S. administration.
Yes, I think that’s very clear. We’re now talking about grand strategy, the most fundamental issues: the security of Europe in a world where the U.S. is no longer, at the very least, a reliable ally. We know that in his first term, Trump talked about leaving NATO. The people who stopped him then—people like Secretary of Defense Mattis—have all gone, so he could do it. Ukraine has brought this from the purely theoretical to the very real, because, of course, if Ukraine were abandoned and overrun, that would bring a successful Russian despot into the Baltic, whose nations would find it very difficult to defend themselves. It would be potentially threatening for countries in Central and Eastern Europe, too, given Putin’s relatively strong army and huge nuclear arsenal; without an American umbrella, Europe would feel very vulnerable. It may now be a little late for Europe to build up our defense capacity and match Russia. It can be done, no doubt, but not overnight, so deciding how to go about it is a crucial challenge. Still, the events of the last few days have made it very clear that Merz, the new Chancellor of Germany—which is clearly going to be the single most important country in this endeavor, given that it has an economy bigger than Russia’s and more than half the population, so it’s a very big power with a very strong industrial base—, has decided to spend the colossal sum of 900 billion euros and abandon the debt brake in order to build up Germany’s defense capacity and infrastructure. This is a consequence, as Scholz said, of the invasion of Ukraine. Suddenly, the Christian Democrats, the pillars of orthodoxy in Germany, are saying, ‘We cannot rely on America.’ That’s completely new. They’ve never said this since the war. They went through unification with America, but they no longer feel that confidence. And they’re going to invest in building up a massive defense. And most Europeans, I think, far from being nervous about this, will be very happy. That’s quite a change given–well, I know the history of Greece very well, of course, and other parts of Europe and my own family experience, so this is rather remarkable. I think that forms the basis of Britain’s beginning to look back to Europe. It’s going to have to do much, much more. We know that. I think the French will have to follow. And I expect that if this happens, and I hope it does, the future defense of Europe— probably within a NATO framework; possibly within the framework of what was once called the Western European Union in the 50s; possibly in some other form—will in fact be built around a close alliance between France, Germany and Britain. Italy will also be there; they make important contributions in certain areas. But those three are potentially the most important military powers. If you look at it in economic and population terms, they’re more than a match for Russia. Their combined economies are much larger. Their populations are significantly larger. They are used to cooperating militarily within the NATO framework, but it will require a massive and very rapid build-up of defense capacity. It will cost quite a bit of money, which can be afforded. They can afford it all, if it’s necessary. What’s that famous Latin tag? “Salus Republicae Suprema Lex”–the safety of the Republic is the supreme law. So, they might have to raise taxes. They might have to cover other things. But they can, and in the end the safety of the state is supreme. Now, obviously there are some very, very big questions. Will countries be willing to follow Germany? Our financial position is not as strong, and France’s definitely isn’t, so it probably means more tax increases. I think the British government will be reasonably solid, and the British political system is pretty united on this, so we won’t have divisions. In France, though, the next president could be Marine Le Pen, and who knows what she will do. I mean she has historically been a supporter of Putin, so if she were to become president…? Still, I believe she won’t in this situation. I believe lots of French people will feel they don’t want a pro-Putin president, and that will, I think, make France quite reliable in this case. But obviously France is a question. Which leaves two big questions: can they do this quickly enough if the Americans are withdrawing as quickly as they have done, far faster than I imagined. Of course, that could be reversed. Who knows with Trump? He could reverse his policy about providing support for Ukraine, military assistance to Ukraine, intelligence to Ukraine tomorrow, but if he doesn’t, it gives Europe very little time to help Ukraine. We would need American weapons, which we might have to buy. Which is the second big question: will the Americans sell? I don’t know. We have to build up our weapons systems. And, crucially, we have to create a trustworthy command and control system at the political level, too. I don’t think it can be done within the EU; the EU-27 is too unwieldy, so it’s going to have to be a somewhat different construction. Britain will have to be part of it, and we really can’t have Hungary in there—that’s pretty obvious. And then, of course, there’s the integrated force command. But for that we can use the NATO structures, even if America is not present. But there are some huge challenges ahead.
Do you also see Turkey being involved in that plan? I read Hakan Fidan’s interview in the Financial Times and I think they want to be part of that.
My own view would be that, if Turkey is prepared to commit itself to the defense of Western Europe, it would be a very valuable ally. Obviously, it’s a big country with a powerful military, and strategically located. Now the question, of course, would be in some ways what Turkey’s price would be? You know we have a frozen Turkish application for accession to the EU, so will Turkey say “I have no idea’? Look, we’re perfectly prepared to cooperate in these new defense arrangements, but we would still want to pursue EU membership.” Would Erdogan want to do that? I’ve no idea, but in principle, you would want them to be part of this, certainly as an ally, but it may raise some big questions which the Europeans really won’t want to answer.
Now, what about all these plans about tariffs? Trump imposes the tariffs, then says you’ve got one more month, like he did with Canada. What is the logic behind tariffs, when we see that the other countries—China, Canada—are hitting back at the United States, and very hard?
There are two things to note here. First, it’s impossible to talk of logic in relation to Trump, because he just doesn’t act in a rational way. In my view, he doesn’t think rationally. He doesn’t really know anything. He doesn’t understand trade policy. He’s very, very intuitive and that means he does lots of very damaging things, and I think we work too hard to work out what’s going on. I think the right way to think about Trump is that he wants to make a deal today. Which means that nothing he said yesterday is a commitment today, and whatever he says today won’t be a commitment tomorrow. That’s just not how he is; he’s notorious in business for the number of times he’s gone bankrupt. He makes deals and then he defaults on them, and to him that’s just part of playing the game. So, when he announces a trade policy today, that’s his intention today, and one of the things he wants to see is what happens next. What will people tell him about his new idea? Was it a great idea or a terrible idea? What do his opponents say, and what pressure do they bring to bear on him? And then he either goes through with it, or he changes it a bit. And then, when he’s changed it, he might change it again the following day. So the most important thing about dealing with Donald Trump is you have absolutely no predictability. There really isn’t anything predictable except his desire to be able to say, on any particular day, that he ‘won’. So in the trade policy situation, there are three different possibilities on any given day. First, he’s putting up an announcement to see how the world responds, or he’s deciding his subsequent behavior on the basis of that response and on whether it looks good to him or not. I think in the case of Canada and Mexico, he was told by the big automobile manufacturers in Detroit at least, that if he imposed these tariffs on Canada, because what the Canadians produce is so important for American car production, that this would make these producers completely uncompetitive and they would go bankrupt. I suspect from what I’ve heard that this is what they said. So, Trump said, “well, that’s interesting—let’s postpone it for a month.” That doesn’t give them much predictability, but it means they can continue for a month. So this is the first thing. And he just sort of raises the flag and see who salutes. It’s a trial and error approach.
Secondly, he has a goal in mind, which will allow him to say he won. With Canada and Mexico, he’s constantly talking about fentanyl, which is apparently becoming less of a problem. And the problem, of course, is mainly that Americans take so many drugs, which is not going to stop. So, one way or other, the drugs will get in. So it’s all nonsense. We know that. But he might hope to get a very, very good deal, or notionally, a very good deal on drugs. As far as we know, virtually no drugs come through Canada. And the border between Canada and the United States is 4,000 miles long and almost all unprotected. And it’s unprotectable. He would probably have to station the entire U.S. Army along the border to really control movements across it. So, he’s asking the Canadians to stop something that is almost certainly not happening. Mexico might be a bit simpler, given the narrower border and all the rest of it, and they’re doing a lot to close it because of migration. But with Canada, that seems impossible. But he still talks about it. Canada has no huge trade surplus; there’s no problem. Mexico doesn’t either. So the trade objectives seem quite unimportant.
Then he says—and I don’t know what this means to Canadians—he says, “Well, we would like you to be the 51st state.” Is that serious? I have absolutely no idea. I expect he’s just having fun. And that’s the third motive. I think that Trump likes getting into people’s heads. It’s part of the exquisite pleasure of being the bully. Being the strongest guy and just bullying people. Now it’s very, very clear from anybody who knows human beings that there are people like that, and people who seem to get exquisite pleasure from torturing other people mentally and physically, sometimes get into power. Sadly, people like that–and I think Trump is one of them–get into power quite often. So, there are three alternative possibilities, and I don’t know which it is. In the end, though, when he announces something like this, he often goes on to do something like it.
And with China, which is a different story?
Now, this is very interesting. He announced before the election that he would impose a 60% tariff on China. And I thought—and many people, many people thought—that this was relatively credible, because the American Right, of which he’s part, is really paranoid about China. You know: it’s the great enemy and all the rest of it. So far, he’s imposed 20%, which is much less than he said. And he’s going after his allies instead. He’s talking about Europe having 25% very soon. We’ll see whether that happens. His allies have been beaten up more, if anything. So what’s going on here? There are again several possibilities. This may be just the beginning of the pressure. He’s going to ratchet it up. We’re going to have more action as relations get worse. He attacks China, the Chinese retaliate, he raises barriers again, so it might be we’re just at the beginning of a longish process which will end up with 60% tariffs. With Europe, I think it’s very clear that if he does impose the 25% tariffs, it’s because he wants German businesses, in particular, to come and produce in America. With China that’s not so clear, because they’re very suspicious of Chinese investors.
And this brings us to the third point. He sort of admires Xi; it’s clear he admires Xi even more than he admires Putin. Because, and I’ll be very blunt about it, in my view these are the sort of rulers he admires, because they’re like him but even more ruthless. If you think of him as a kind of Mob boss, which is how he acts, the only people gangster bosses respect are bigger, stronger gangster bosses. And China is a very big power and it has a very strong dictator, who looks like he’s a dictator for life. And he’s said over and over in the past how much he admires Xi, so maybe he thinks “I don’t really care about Asia. I don’t know, actually, I just want to dominate my hemisphere. I’m a Fortress America guy,” which he is and unlike Rubio and most of the Republicans, he doesn’t really want a huge battle with China.
I think that’s consistent with what they’re doing on TSMC, too: “We’re going to abandon Taiwan, we’ll take out TSMC into America. We don’t care what happens to Japan, Korea, the Philippines. Who cares? They’re a long, long way from us. The Chinese can have them.” Now, I’m not saying that’s what the Republican elite around him thinks, or even the Democratic elite, but it could well be what he thinks, because I think he really is an isolationist. And that’s partly why he doesn’t care about Europe. And it may be why he’s being more gentle with China than we expect. And while people around him want to have a great big war with China, metaphorically speaking, or maybe even in reality, he doesn’t. I’m always recalling his obvious admiration for the Chinese system, because he wants to be dictator too, there’s no doubt about that. Even more extreme, when he was president the first time, he admired the North Korean leader enormously. He thought he would make a great deal with him. He said he was very disappointed in the end, but he really believed in it. So, I think one quite plausible assumption is that he doesn’t really care as much about China as most of the people around him do.
Martin, thank you so much for taking the time to have this discussion.
Thank you. I hope it’s been useful. It has certainly been provocative.
Martin Wolf will attend and participate in the 10th Delphi Economic Forum. The forum will take place in the city of Delphi from April 9th to 12th, 2025.
