Appeasing Trump Makes Him More Dangerous by the Day

[Celerity]

Europe's leaders, paralysed by fear, are repeating the mistakes of the 1930s—and hastening their own irrelevance.

https://www.socialeurope.eu/appeasing-trump-makes-him-more-dangerous-by-the-day



2025 was a good year for Donald Trump—success on all fronts. His tariff hikes did not destroy the global trading system; instead, they filled US state coffers. Inflation did not go through the roof. America’s trading partners absorbed, as he predicted, a substantial part of the costs. The war in Ukraine is now fully paid for by Europeans. NATO partners have committed to increasing their defence spending to 5 per cent of GDP and will buy plenty of American weapons. Big business, media magnates, Congress, and the Senate are all eager to fulfil the president’s will. He can send the army into cities governed by Democrats. The rich and powerful are queuing up to make donations for his golden ballroom at the White House. The Supreme Court largely supports his agenda. He is not very popular, but he relentlessly pursues and succeeds with his goals. A democratic socialist as mayor of New York might be a glimmer of hope, but it does not count for much.

Hamas has been destroyed. Hezbollah is decimated. The Assad regime is history. His friend Benjamin Netanyahu had—and still has—a largely free hand in Gaza and the West Bank to pursue his policy of a “Greater Israel,” eradicating the two-state solution even as a distant dream. Iran’s “axis of resistance” lies in tatters. Regime change in Tehran seems more likely than ever. Nigeria, Yemen, and Syria have learned the hard way that Trump is not chickening out but willing to hit hard. Javier Milei wins the Argentinian election thanks to a US bailout. Nicolás Maduro is captured and presented to the world in chains. The US has reasserted full control over its backyard and pushes back against Chinese footholds in the Americas. Cuba and Greenland seem next on the president’s list. In pursuing his agenda, he shows little respect for American law and none for international law.

Canada and Mexico simultaneously offer concessions and try to maintain national independence. While Claudia Sheinbaum and Mark Carney at least try to maintain some dignity, European leaders are spineless. In fear of Putin, they are, in front of Trump, the Chamberlains of our day. They desperately beg Trump to stick with Ukraine. They make concession after concession, only to learn again and again that he prefers Putin over Volodymyr Zelensky. Trump must feel vindicated that he can do and demand whatever he wants—and the Europeans will swallow it. His impressive record of victories will convince him and his supporters that the “stable genius” in the White House can shape the world according to his will. It sounds like a joke when the German chancellor says that the legal situation surrounding the Maduro kidnapping is complicated. It is very simple: bombing a foreign country and kidnapping its president is a breach of the UN Charter and international law. Maduro is a terrible dictator, but so are many others.

The fragile bulwark against catastrophe

International law and rules should not be morally oversold as a “values-based order,” but they are crucially important as mechanisms to limit the risk of great wars. They help ensure that competing interests and rivalries between states do not spiral out of control. World War I and World War II were consequences of a multipolar world of competing great powers. A multipolar world does not result in a peaceful system of separate spheres of influence; at best, it becomes a world of heavily armed deterrence with the permanent risk of uncontrolled military escalation. Ignoring and dismissing international law and norms makes the world a far more dangerous place.

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