Time for Europe to stand up
The Trump administration has released its National Security Strategy document sharply criticising Europe.
The document claims that Europe is in danger of losing its national identities and that the US must support nationalistic parties in Europe. This is an attempt to diminish the power of Europe as a world force, especially because it challenges US corporations to be better world citizens, by promoting right-wing parties that will only weaken their countries and pit them against each other and bring them more under Russian influence.
This is a challenge to Europe to actually stand up for real values and not just continue to pretend to favour democracy. They need to do this to persuade their citizens to support them rather than the fake would-be right-wing dictators. It is not enough to talk in platitudes but to actually transform their governments into real servants of their people. The challenge from Trump means they cannot pretend anymore, but actually stand for strong democratic principles. They can no longer just pay lip service, otherwise the right-wing liars will trounce them in the elections.
A strong truly democratic Europe is the only real significant counter to the US and China ruling the world. It is European legislation that has brought US monopolies to heel and serve their users' best interests. The process of Europe speeding up its provision of their control technology for managing NATO forces will have to rapidly accelerate now. The US is walking away from Europe as an ally, so weak statements such as spouted by the Vice‑President of the European Commission, Kaja Kallas, that the US is still an ally give a very false idea of the challenge the new US policy presents.
Members of every other alliance involving the US, such as Five Eyes, will now have to rethink whether they still want to be tied up with a country that advocates regime change across Europe, as the US could just as easily turn on them. The UK had already suspended sharing Caribbean intelligence because of the US maritime war crimes against Venezuelan boats.
Every US official, be it civilian of military has always spoken that their foreign policy stance is to serve US interests, but have usually couched it is platitudes that emphasise cooperation with its supposed allies. The strategy document says the quiet part out loud: the US wants to control everything it can and impose its way upon the world. The US has always favoured working with dictators, preferably ones it has installed, but a unified and strong Europe that resists US domination is now a direct challenge to US hegemony.
The other area to be severely affected by the changing US world view is defence cooperation and contracts. The F35 jet has been held up as the face of state-of-the-art modern warfare, with its advanced interoperability between air forces of different nations, but it has highlighted the loss of autonomy such use entails. While the supply chain for the F35 is global, it is all controlled by Lockheed in the US, with the great majority of revenue going to the US.
Other countries may supply parts but they have no autonomy, and with a US that is shunning traditional alliances, being heavily dependent upon it is risky. Monumental cost blowouts, dubious reliability and relying on US command and control is leading many countries to rethink their F35 contracts, with Sweden's Gripen E a top candidate because of its much lower operational costs, higher reliability, and Saab's willingness to provide knowledge transfer and allow local building and development. This is critical when wanting to ensure a measure of independence from the US.