Trump Is Taking Advantage of Europe's Divides, Not Causing Them
By Masha Lipman
1:27 P.M.
Even before President Trump set foot on Polish soil, the leader of the country’s ruling right-wing Law and Justice Party, the former Prime Minister Jarosław Kaczyński, declared Trump’s decision to visit Warsaw a “new success” for Poland that made other countries jealous. Poland’s defense minister, Antoni Macierewicz, said that his government is on the same page as Trump when it comes to being attacked by “liberals, postcommunists, lefties and genderists.” And, as a pro-government crowd chanted Trump’s name on Thursday, Trump delivered an address in Warsaw where he urged Russia to halt its meddling in Eastern Europe, and pledged that the U.S. would defend its nato allies. But he also painted “radical Islamic terrorism,” unchecked immigration, and government overreach as existential threats to Western civilization.
“The fundamental question of our time is whether the West has the will to survive,” Trump said. “Do we have the confidence in our values to defend them at any cost? Do we have enough respect for our citizens to protect our borders? Do we have the desire and the courage to preserve our civilization in the face of those who would subvert and destroy it?”
In Paris, Berlin, and Brussels, Trump’s challenge to Russia and defense of nato will be welcomed, but his rhetoric on the dangers of immigration will likely be seen as the latest example of the American President trying to sow populist division in Europe. The current Polish government is anti-immigration, skeptical of climate change, and pro-coal. Its domestic opponents accuse it of eroding civil liberties as well as undermining independent media outlets and the country’s judiciary. Western Europe’s liberal leaders fear that Trump’s Poland visit, and his policies in general, threaten to sow further discord throughout the continent.
The problems with European unity, and the continent’s deep economic, social, and political divides, predate Trump’s Presidency and are so vast that his visit to Poland is unlikely to significantly change them. For now, a series of recent elections in Western Europe has averted an immediate threat to European Union unity. The French nationalist Marine Le Pen and her party, as well as anti-establishment parties in the Netherlands and Austria, did not succeed in coming to power. Even in Britain, whose unexpected vote in favor of exiting the E.U. seemed to presage its collapse, Theresa May and her pro-Brexit party fared poorly in the recent general election. A convincing victory for Emmanuel Macron, in France, has further reassured those who were preparing to mourn “the end of Europe.” And the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, who looked politically weakened only a few months ago, has regained her stature.
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