Dem
47
GOP
53
Donald Trump's foreign policy is causing allies to tie themselves in knots to deal with it. The E.U. has gotten the message. With threats to seize a piece of E.U. land (Greenland, which is part of Denmark), withdrawals of U.S. troops in Germany, and frequent statements about how Europe is not contributing to its own defense, the E.U. and its members understand they cannot count on the U.S. to defend it from Russian aggression anymore. Fortunately for the E.U., Russia is currently tied down in Ukraine and is not in any position to attack any other European countries, at least for the time being.
The E.U. is planning to loan Ukraine about $106 billion, two-thirds of which is earmarked for defense, especially for further developing Ukraine industry, especially drone production. The first disbursement should be on the way as soon as the Ukrainian parliament approves the deal. About $53 billion will be disbursed this year and $53 billion next year. Although this is technically a loan, no one really expects Ukraine to pay it back any time soon, if ever. The E.U. understands that and sees this as $106 billion to fight Russia. It is just a defense expenditure in slightly unusual packaging. Ukraine is likely to buy various weapons and ammunition from European defense companies as well as building up its own defense industry.
One of the consequences of Trump dissing Europe is that the E.U. is actively working on building up a European defense industry, which means buying fewer weapons from the U.S. Defense companies in the U.S. will feel that, of course, and complain to Trump, but it is unlikely to have much effect. In the long term, losing good customers will hurt the U.S. defense industry and the pain is entirely self-inflicted—by Trump. If Trump had merely told NATO members they had to spend more on defense, but that's all he did, they would have simply bought more U.S. equipment. But by making it clear that the U.S. was no longer a reliable partner, he caused the E.U. to start rebuilding its own defense industry.
Now here is the complication. Secretary General Mark Rutte of NATO has a different challenge: He wants to keep the U.S. in NATO, despite Trump's frequent threat to withdraw from it. He knows that all Trump cares about is money, so he has a plan. The plan is to promise new defense spending in the U.S. by NATO members. Trump has ordered NATO countries to increase their defense spending to 3.5% of GDP and Rutte is dangling the proposition of them spending those extra euros in the U.S., creating jobs for blue-collar workers and profits for defense companies.
The obvious problem is that there is a conflict here. If the E.U. wants to build up a local defense industry (because it doesn't trust the U.S.), it can't also offer Trump the carrot of spending all the new defense funding in the U.S. Either the money will be spent in the U.S. or in Europe. It can't be both. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Rutte are going to have some interesting discussions about this.
Maybe the real plan is to take advantage of Trump's lack of math skills and short attention span. The E.U. could place a flashy order for some piece of military equipment that it can't produce and doesn't want to produce, say Trump-class battleships (that will probably never be produced) to distract Trump. Simultaneously, it could spend the bulk of the new defense money on homegrown equipment—for example, German Leopard tanks, Swedish Gripen fighter jets, and Ukrainian drones. If Trump gets a nice photo op when the contract for the battleships is signed, he might forget everything else, not withdraw from NATO, and move on. It is a strange way to conduct diplomacy, but this is the world we are in.
There will be a NATO summit in July in Ankara. By then, European leaders will have to decide what their top priority is. Is it to get weapons right now, which means buying them from the U.S., or is it building up the European defense industry? Right now, all the noses are not pointed in the same direction. Germany, a manufacturing powerhouse, supports creating a strong European defense industry, since much of the weapons manufacturing would likely be done in Germany. Sweden, which feels threatened by Russia, wants weapons now and is willing to buy them from the U.S. At the summit, all this will have to be thrashed out, with the U.S. contingent strongly rooting for members to buy their weapons from the U.S. (V)