On 27 May, an official document calling for regime change in European countries was published in Washington DC.
Politicians all over Europe would do well to read this document carefully before they and their spin doctors start concocting strategies for their upcoming election campaigns.
This time, what is at stake is not simply who will govern European countries. It goes much further: this American administration increasingly sees Europe as a political battleground.
It considers elections in Europe — recently in Romania and Poland, and soon in the Netherlands, the Czech Republic and, as some speculate, France too — as an opportunity to get European countries governed by far-right leaders with Trumpian agendas.
With those leaders, it wants to forge a ‘civilizational alliance’, one “forged in common culture, faith, family ties, mutual assistance in times of strife, and above all, a shared Western civilizational heritage”.
Other European political parties should be opposed, as those are waging “an aggressive campaign against Western civilization itself”, which - yes – “increasingly affects American security’.
The document, The Need for Civilizational Allies in Europe, was written by Samuel Samson, senior adviser for the Bureau for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor in the US State Department.
It builds on vice-president JD Vance's speech at the Munich Security Conference last February. Vance then professed that Europe’s “retreat from some of its most fundamental values” forms the biggest threat to Western values and democracy.
The State Department document, however, goes a step further. It states that “Europe’s democratic backsliding” harms American security, economic interests and freedom of speech. Because of this, it implies it is time for the US to act: far-right forces in Europe must transform their political systems so that Washington can form an alliance of civilization with “Christian nations like Hungary”.
According to Samson, it is not America that undermines democracy by ignoring court rulings; demolishing public institutions; blocking visas of people who criticise president Trump; or picking migrants off the streets and dumping them in El Salvador or Libya.
No, the paper states that it is Europe that is anti-democratic: Europe is “a hotbed of digital censorship, mass migration, restrictions on religious freedom, and numerous other assaults on democratic self-governance”.
Today, Europe is largely governed by conservative parties that are decidedly more rightwing than 10 years ago, with some even governing with far right parties.
Nevertheless, the State Department document describes Europe as a hotbed of ultra-leftwing zealots, a Europe “that replaces its spiritual and cultural roots, that treats traditional values as dangerous relics, and that centralises power in unaccountable institutions”.
The text refers to Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, medieval Christianity and British common law, but makes no mention of the Enlightenment — the foundation of both European and US constitutional systems with its separation of church and state, individual liberty, representative government, the rule of law and a strong emphasis on rationalism and science.
This document is in line with president Trump’s views on Europe.
In a clear break with Washington’s Europe policy during the past 80 years, Trump does not see Europe as the centrepiece of US foreign policy anymore.
What keeps him awake at night, is the rise of China, America’s main rival. Keen on avoiding a military clash with China, he intends to build a strong bloc against it instead.
For this, he wants to line up all America’s allies — on American terms, meaning he plans to turn Europe and allies like Canada and Mexico into US vassals.
Since they are resisting, they get far harsher American treatment than autocracies like Russia, Turkey or even China itself. By being ‘nice’ and accommodative with India or Russia, he tries to lure them into his camp and prevent them from allying themselves with China.
Trump’s Western bloc is not centered around values or democracy. The focus is entirely different: to prevent China from growing too powerful.
This is why Washington is forcing its allies, especially in Europe, into submission.
Those who resist are punished. Trump's tariff wars, his attempts to torpedo the EU’s digital rulebook and his demand that Europe shoulders the financial and operational burden of Nato are just the beginning.
Trump conquered America by starting an extreme culture war. Now he is exporting this war to Europe in order to flip governments.
In every European election, he aggressively supports far-right candidates – PiS presidential candidate Karol Nawrocki in Poland, AfD leader Alice Weidel in Germany, far-right activist George Simion in Romania.
Dutch far-right politician Geert Wilders, who portrays migrants as criminals and calls Trump a “brother in arms”, also enjoys full White House backing.
To Trump’s delight, Wilders supports Israel’s attacks on Gaza, Lebanon and Iran, and likes the controversial Gaza ‘Riviera plan’ which involves mass deportation of the Palestinian population. With elections scheduled in October, Wilders is aggressively pulling a Trump.
Recent polls suggest most Europeans (especially in the west and south) are falling out of love with Trump’s America.
They have understood that the transatlantic alliance, which underpinned eight decades of peace and prosperity in Europe, is no more.
Now, they need to realize that America is not withdrawing from Europe, but is actually trying to subjugate it. Europeans need to take Trump’s interference in Europe’s democracies much more seriously, and fight back. Europe’s real threat is not wokeism (whatever that means anyway), but America trying to walk all over them.
Fighting back, however, is only possible if political leaders see the broader, global picture and understand what is at stake. This broader picture should guide election campaigns, since this is what the ‘Trumpites’ are also doing.
Instead of letting their agendas be determined by polarising, artificial identity debates imported from America, cheaply pitting citizens against one another, politicians should show responsibility and calmly show their electorates how to prevent Europe from turning into a copy or a colony of the United States.
This year, we turn 25 and are looking for 2,500 new supporting members to take their stake in EU democracy. A functioning EU relies on a well-informed public – you.
Caroline de Gruyter is a Europe correspondent for the Dutch newspaper NRC. She is also a columnist for Foreign Policy and De Standaard. This piece was adapted from a recent column for NRC.
Caroline de Gruyter is a Europe correspondent for the Dutch newspaper NRC. She is also a columnist for Foreign Policy and De Standaard. This piece was adapted from a recent column for NRC.