Author: Desp(e)rat(e) measures

18.3.25

Dear Partners in Thought,

Two months into Trump 2.0 it is clear that the impact of his frenetic, erratic and poorly-managed policies is obvious as was expected. A small majority of Americans is now opposed to what they see unfolding, including many of his own voters, with only the MAGA cult base remaining largely faithful and hoping for the best. The US is also now led by a top team characterised by its combined incompetence for such secretary roles and blind obedience to the leader who wants no control this term, mirroring features often noticed in autocracies.  

Time has flown very fast since January 20. It is now useful to assess the impact of Trump’s policies and think of their potential developments that may occur in America and the world, all the more as it is likely that they were not seriously expected to be as game-changing as they fast became. Impacts can be seen at many levels, given the long list of decisions taken in a very short time, but the main ones are already clear. Potential developments or scenarios can be many and also far-reaching both for America and the world. 

At home, Trump and his team are destroying the Federal government, which has clear impacts in many areas like health and education across the country, including in red states where many of his voters are increasingly voicing great discontent. Many federal employees, including former Trump supporters, are also losing their jobs thanks to a quasi-rogue operating DOGE that is managed by the richest man in the world, who is also looking out for his own interests across the board and globally, not unlike his “Big Tech bros” that the MAGA base finds fine and not the “despicable urban elite” of the day. Trump is now going after personal enemies and the prosecutors who led the many legal actions against him during the Biden administration in ways that recall a bad Count of Monte Christo novel of our times. The appointment of highly questionable leaders of the FBI and National Intelligence known for their conspiracy theories combined with the sacking of experienced FBI and intelligence officers is not sound for sheer American security. Stopping incoming illegal immigration, always a liberal democratic weakness as seen in Europe, appears to be supported by a majority of Americans and perhaps the only Trump policy win, even if the incoherent use of tariffs to do so, not to mention unmanageable mass deportations, has created clear havoc. Republicans in Congress strangely turned against elite academia (and the educated ones?) by aiming at substantially raising taxes of top university endowments such as those of Harvard, Yale or Princeton while the Trump administration has started to cut off federal funding and grants to colleges, overall a core American competitive advantage with 72% of top universities worldwide (this while China is increasing them at home). Diversity and inclusion or DEI, even if admittedly excessive at times in their implementation ways, are being cancelled even by leading global businesses kowtowing to the Trump times (while students at military bases worldwide, of all places and people, resist the crackdown). The pardons of unacceptable January 6 insurrectionists and historical Trump supporters goes on even if helped by Joe Biden’s farewell take on his own son. Free speech is also endangered as shown with the treatment of traditional news media like the Associated Press or the plans to deport a pro-Palestinian former Columbia University student activist and Green Card resident. However, we can see today at least a backlash from the judicial branch that shows the US is still a democracy and the constitution is upheld – for now, even if federal court orders are also defied like with the deportation of 250 alleged members of a Venezuelan gang (all while the Trump-friendly Supreme Court had already taken the view that the US President was immune from any legal action regarding his decisions during his term).

Trump’s economic policies have already led to stark stock market declines in March with likely rising inflation that, as expected, results from announced tariffs and associated trade wars also linked to geopolitical aggression (French wine may become a luxury item soon but will not impact Musk & Co). Such declines are now sold as an expected “temporary pain” though with the word recession resurfacing – not a great development for all those who did not like Trump but voted for him essentially to ensure their economic well-being (making James Carville known for his 1992 “It’s the economy, stupid!” surely smile even if he must be distraught today). Consumer confidence already starts being eroded by uncertainty with less store and fast food chain visits across America. And then mass deportations of illegal but law obedient immigrants will substantially hurt some key sectors like agriculture as some Red State Republican elected officials seem to have woken up to. Traditional foreign investment is also likely to decline as a result of a sapped confidence in America. Trump’s national strategic reserve of Bitcoin is befuddling many but his odd move may also be linked to personal interests given his very recent family crypto projects. While the current negative economic developments are deemed by the Trump team to reflect a necessary “period of transition” or “detox period”, the mix of incoherence and unpredictability of policies ultimately aimed at deregulation and tax cuts is getting too strong not to sap both local investor (even a previously “Trump-flexible” Wall Street) and citizen confidence. At least Trump acting as a White House Tesla salesman tried to mitigate the downfall we see.

The Republican party and its officials in Congress are still (so far) following Trump, even if many of them dislike the president and his hurtful policies. Job preservation matters more than economic and political sanity, even if the 2026 mid-terms may prove damning to many. The Republican party has lost its historical essence in the Trump era, while the Democrats currently seem to struggle to form a productive opposition and need restructuring, all of this making for a very unproductive political environment.

In two months, Trump destroyed 80 years of US leadership of what was called the West or the Free World, threatening the invasion of close friends like Canada and Danish Greenland, or even leaving NATO. While putting the global climate change challenge aside, he also dismantled USAID which provided clear soft power to the US worldwide with many direct and indirect benefits at all levels, including its image as a good global power – not to mention dealing with so many issues like significant food shortages or health needs in the developing world. Key US-funded and managed pro-democracy media outlets like Voice of America, Radio Free Asia or the historical Cold War era Radio Free Europe reaching out to millions among autocracies worldwide are being gradually dismantled. His main driver and odd rationale, as America was the great beneficiary of such a leadership role, was that too many tax dollars were wasted and America had been taken advantage of for too long. Not realising the harm to America’s power, Trump focused on USAID savings that could then also lead, as with tariffs or federal funding cuts, to lower taxes for ordinary Americans, assuming the economic shocks we see be “temporary”, which is unlikely or at best a dangerous gambling approach.   

Some new and potential key geostrategic developments 

The new breath-taking approach of Trump 2.0 to international affairs has clear consequences globally, at times via wild and surprising announcements, from renaming the Gulf of Mexico, a new approach to South Africa and its white farmers or DC envoys, taking back control of the Panama Canal, raising doubts about the 1960 US-Japan defence treaty to making Gaza another Riviera. The list is very long and hard to follow, but there are some key actual and potential developments already affecting the world after only two months.     

It is clear that, while the US is unlikely to take drastic decisions to break the Western alliance, including NATO, further, Trump will see the world as a transactional geostrategic chessboard with direct US interests, as he sees them, being a primary policy driver. As such he has just launched massive and unilateral operations against the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen in order to preserve US trade and shipping interests while stressing the global benefits of such a move.  

While not having fostered a MEGA movement, Trump has unwittingly cemented European unity and admittedly a much-needed and long-in-the making focus on its independent defence, this while assisting a UK-EU rapprochement, first on defence, that may lead to more concrete partnership steps in the next decade (would Trump be a Brexit killer?) In the same flavour, the EU is developing trade talks with both Mexico and Mercosur in Latin America (Would Trump not be an agent of the EU and not Russia after all?). And finally, a new and welcome Germany is also appearing as wanting to be a core player in European defence, shedding the weight of history and contributing at its strong level.  

Trump’s chaotic geostrategic approach may lead Europe to eventually getting closer to China in some strategic and mutually-fitting “safe” areas while Canada may become close to and possibly a formal partner of the EU, two examples of developments that would not support American global interests. 

While Trump gets too aligned with Russia (for many reasons, including personal ones) while not fully supporting Ukraine as a key ally should (with back-and-forth decisions on military and intelligence support that look like the tariffs approaches to Mexico and Canada), he may eventually help achieve a peace, even if it may not favour the aggressed country and indeed ally – not to mention NATO members. History may wrongly remember him as the solver of the Ukraine invasion and forget at what cost. One of the hidden drivers of this unbelievable approach is that Trump may want to get Russia against China as another example that Asia, and the great competition he sees against Beijing, means more than Europe today – all while likely forgetting Taiwan as long as semi-conductors are of course manufactured in the US.

While new developments will occur, it is likely that most, if not all, historical Western allies of the US, even if Trump has natural leverage over them (v traditional enemies), will work hard to keep a form of practical relationship with the Trump administration while America is unlikely to invade Greenland or force Canada into being the 51^st state. The showbiz news appeal of President Trump is likely to erode over time as his aggressive announcement of policies and their back and forth will usually lead to nothing, or not much but aggravation, risking making America not being taken seriously and being seen as unreliable in international affairs.   

Potential developments in the US itself

While the economic shocks following Trump’s policies will affect prices of goods and services, many will suffer job losses unless an economic redirection takes place in the short term. If not, the Republican party will suffer an historical loss in the 2026 mid-terms, assuming the Democrats reshape themselves, find a new leadership, deal with excessive ‘woke’ issues and find the right candidates. This redirection would lead the path to a Democratic win in 2028 for a centrist Democratic candidate like Pete Buttigieg, Josh Shapiro or Gavin Newsom, all needing to take a more conservative turn on societal values. This, of course, would assume that the US Constitution would still hold and a form of mild autocracy were not reached as times become too challenging for the Trump administration. Such a return to normality would also lead to a reshaping of US foreign policy according to pre-Trump 2.0 norms that would be welcome by most of the world at large.    

The real domestic danger would be for many in the MAGA cult base to finally realise they have been duped by President Trump and his “Big Tech bros”, which could lead to a form of civil insurrection, if not war, that could involve some of the most Trump-loving red states against the rest of America, this time not along the natural North-South geographic division seen during the American civil war of 1861. Social media, extremist influencers and podcasters who have recently shaped American life may also play a key role in this previously unthinkable development fitting our new times. In many ways, this extraordinary scenario, not unlike the now credible one of the US potentially leaving NATO, would be the logical consequence for voters having blindly backed populist leaders and finding out that they cannot manage governments or make their lives better but can only create chaos. Many of these angry voters, however misplaced their support of extremist populist leaders, often fuelled by lack of formal education and excessive social media focus, may feel without normal recourse any longer. 

It is hard to predict the future, even if all could have seen the adverse effects of Trump’s frenetic economic and geopolitical policies without being a PhD in economics or a leading diplomat. However, given the drastic changes to the world we knew, it is quite key to try to see what the future may be at the personal, corporate or country levels, so we can assist our leaderships, and indeed our fellow citizens, in dealing efficiently with our uncertain times. 

Warmest regards,

Serge 

24-2-25

Dear Partners in Thought,

A good friend told me recently that I may have focused too much on the negative impacts of Trump on America and the world while not recognising that a majority of voters backed him in a democratic election. To be fair, I saw Trump’s impacts as more relevant to review so we could deal with them. However, I also recognise that it is interesting to understand why so many people (77 million) voted for Trump and elected him President without this time around the always strange but legal assistance of the Red States-favoured Electoral College. And in doing so, I also wanted to stress in all fairness and a positive note – even if irrelevant now – that he would not have won if his swift and destructive programme had been known by his voters beyond the showbiz flavour and drivers that allowed his win.   

So why did so many vote for Trump and what where some or all of their drivers?

• A feeling of being left out and not mattering, often residing in rural areas or small cities, away from metropolises where decisions are taken for them.

• A limited education and often no college degree of any sort, combined with increased loneliness for many, while relying on social media they want to hear (making them easier to manipulate).

• A resentment against the “undeserving elite” and its set-up (like the DC policy establishment, Ivy League colleges, old money, the well-offs, the natural concentration of wealth in key cities like NYC, Chicago, Boston, San Fran) even if strangely not minding the likes of Musk, Thiel and now Bezos, Zuckerberg, most of Big Tech and many of the Wall Street crowd – indeed the real elite of the day – having pushed for Trump as they wanted fewer regulations, less taxation and fewer constraints of any sort.     

• The cost of living felt at the supermarket for key goods (even if Biden’s policies had helped the US to fare better than any other major countries). 

• A resentment against “Woke” and any kind of excessive diversity and how it was at times insanely applied in businesses and schools (this especially from young and not so young males).

• A low understanding of, and interest in, international affairs seen as non-core to their lives and often a useless cost (USAID is a waste and seems corrupt according to my podcasters… And why do we need soft power?).  

• A low understanding of economics (tariffs are great as foreigners pay – when they also will through inflation and their own purchases). 

• The ability of Trump and any populist leaders (like in Europe) to “showbiz capitalise” on voters’ pain (real or imagined) while grabbing votes via easy solutions to deal with complex problems, often too costly to implement or unmanageable efficiently and with poor outcomes. 

• A feeling that public sector bureaucracy is inherently wasteful and inefficient so let’s get rid of it and sack all the bureaucrats (hence a DOGE that is also questionable in many ways). 

• A belief that immigration – even in a land that was built by it – is bad on many grounds and primarily affecting national identity as too ethnically and culturally differentiated, this combined with the inability of governments/bureaucracies to manage documented and undocumented flows, even if needed in some key economic sectors. (And in all fairness, immigration is also a European topic.)   

It is interesting to realise that the above drivers – not always the best and the brightest – led the vote of many, while Trump’s strange, if not downright unacceptable, personality and style combined with a shady history did not seem to matter. He was simply seen as the right medium for the angst of many voters, even if some would never want him as a buddy (putting aside the MAGA-hat and T-shirt wearing crowd in search for amusement or simply a need to exist). 

Voter frustration can be understood with regard to some matters that many governments usually do not manage well, both in the US and across Europe. Many Trump voters wanted strong and easy-to-grasp policy proposals that make sense on the surface and deal radically with their issues (or indeed grievances). It is clear that some of their drivers are fully understandable; liberal-democratic governments have always been bad at managing bureaucracy (even if an inherent feature), or immigration – often for fear of allegations of racism and given the need for more workers in unwanted jobs at home. It is also true that in most countries, voters do not care much about foreign policy and its substantial funding features unless they are under clear threat. We, and especially the US today, thanks to the rise of Trump a decade ago, live in an increasingly polarised world where discussions or compromises no longer matter, and views should only be fought for in what becomes a hostile political debate fuelled by partisan social media. Voters, usually ill-informed by design, are more “against” than “for” anything, which translates into strong views fuelled by exciting podcasted disinformation, leading them to backing populist politicians with extremist programmes that become more normal and expected in a gradually consensus-free world.    

As stated in earlier notes (notably “Getting the right take on Trump’s impact on America and the world” – February 19^th), Trump’s deluge of executive orders (67 in one month, a record) and daily offensive announcements, creating both chaos and low understanding of what is happening even from his voters, was unexpected and very surprising, even from an individual like him. On a side note, his “deluge” with at least one breath-taking key news a day, makes it challenging to keep track of the man, with many of his decisions still seen as Trump’s and not as America’s by many observers, given their uniquely unusual and at times world game-changing nature. After hijacking a now servile GOP (look at the confirmation of weird secretary nominees), Trump is now hijacking America and its role in the world, after all feeling that he can as an elected President. Trump’s personal features clearly bear no similarities to those of any prior Presidents and reflect the change of the political debate in the US (and within Western democracies). Every day of his short tenure brings more bad and world order-shattering news as if “shock and awe” was the expected norm and radically new approaches now making the US a self-centred super-great power is right and sound. In this new era the form, usually violent, matters more than the substance and the policy impacts. Trump’s voters are bound to grow tired of this new approach after a while and will likely be the first to pay at home for his policies, while Europe (and indeed Ukraine) will suffer from his betrayal and their own complacency in having relied too much on American support, even if the latter also fully served America’s interests at many levels.   

A Washington Post-Ipsos poll released on February 20^th showed that Americans are mixed-to-negative on Trump’s nascent second term while 57 per cent say he has exceeded his authority since taking office. Polls on Musk and his DOGE leadership show worse results, with some Republican legislators even worrying about the method and impact of the drastic Federal job and funding cuts. Even Fox News joined all key media networks to ask for a lift of the ban on Associated Press from attending White House briefings following their sticking to “Gulf of Mexico”. Over the last month, the S&P stock market index vastly underperformed the Stoxx Europe 600 index (1.7 per cent vs. 5.7 per cent) while US inflation has already started to rise in anticipation of tougher times. Trump would likely lose the Presidential election if held today as many American voters, including some driven by the above-stated features, would not be happy with his rapidly-engineered civilisational meltdown. The flood of self-destructive domestic and foreign policy executive orders and announcements we saw in his first month, that will eventually be felt at home very directly, has also triggered the redefinition of what America has stood for during almost a century. Even if not caring for international affairs and “protected by an ocean”, voters would not back the destruction of the Atlantic Alliance, making Trump in effect an agent of a very happily surprised Russia about what is increasingly seen, through the de facto validation of the Ukraine invasion, as a historical pivot of sinister proportions. Had they known what was really on offer, it is indeed highly unlikely that a majority of voters would have supported Trump, whose actual approach reflects only too well his unbalanced personality and style. However, even if Trump would have lost the November election based on what we see today, it is not clear that his majority in Congress would be defeated in 2026 as it likely should be if Team Trump was successful in gradually destroying the US Constitution and rules attached to it, like mid-terms every two years, which Americans have known since 1781. With Trump, anything is possible. 

The last month was too full of unmanageably sad news. So, to conclude on a funny note, let’s rejoice that Canada just beat the US in the final of the 4 Nations hockey championship allowing Trudeau to deservedly needle Trump about his deranged 51^st state offer threats.    

Warmest regards,

Serge      

32-1-25

Dear Partners in Thought,

Trump is quickly changing America in terms of foreign policy approach by threatening allies with new isolationist and “America First” strategic and economic policies, in what is seen (at best) as an expression of great power in transactional ways. Trump is clearly seen as no longer focusing on benevolent Western leadership that served his country very well for generations since WW2. In doing so, he risks harming the core interests of his country and citizens, the latter who may feel it when retail prices rise in supermarkets, and through the lack of manpower in key sectors like agriculture via general mass deportations. All while federalism is withdrawing at many funding and regulatory levels, focusing on ideology more than sheer impact. As is often the case in America, money will prevail – if not greed this time – as, while core MAGA voters will be gradually forgotten once key early populist decisions have been announced and potentially implemented, the real winners, probably of a short-term nature, will be Big Tech and the flexible Wall Street crowds. It is also possible that many educated Americans, keen on the old ways of their country, may decide to leave it to live somewhere else, like in Europe, which would remind them of better days. And as times go by and Trump and his team keep undermining institutions, democracy as we know it may gradually vanish, as is the case in rising autocracies still providing the cover of democratic tools that no longer apply. In many odd ways, Trump’s move may make the US closer in style to China and Russia while no longer offering the key differentiation that made America the great country it was.      

While Europeans, who share so much culturally with America, given the ancestry of the majority of its citizens, will feel abandoned by the once great Western leader, these new times may have positive and indeed needed consequences in making Europe more independent and also stronger in defence.  NATO may go on, as it should, even if more focused on transactions with the current White House resident. The decision to stop foreign aid as the leading world provider, mostly focused on the developing world which may save $60bn annually will hurt the relationships and standing of the US globally. One of the consequences of this mega (if not MAGA-induced) change or “aid-quake” will be for some developing countries to find China or even Russia and its few followers, even if harder for the latter, to be tangibly better strategic and tactical partners. 

The major Trump damage will be the destruction of the identity and image of America as the world knew it – especially, but not only, Europe and the West – with values and principles that many took for granted and representing the essence of the indispensable country. Pardoning violent “January 6” insurrectionists will forever set the tone of the start of a new era, also at home. America was never perfect but it led by showing what many countries wanted to see as a largely “civilized” modus operandi and indeed a model for all worldwide. It was also defined by going beyond the great power ways that better defined the Soviet Union or today’s China and that Russia tried to stick to in a quasi-existential move, as it kept declining, with the invasion of another country in 21^st century Europe. In many ways Trump and his fast-developed but long-built policies are simply making America just another great power with no specific appeal in terms of values and principles. We may all pay a dear price for it, including and especially America itself.   

While one may hope that the 2026 mid-terms may change the course of events, it is still a feeling based on America functioning as we knew it. Relying on an electoral turning point like this, as we should, may also be the wrong approach as two years may create too much internal damage, even if we see some institutional and judicial resistance, also from some key American states. It is thus far better for the rest of the West – like Europe, Japan and their allies – to focus on being more independent and indeed much stronger in terms of defence and foreign policy – as always wanted by Trump for the former – and play the transactional game wanted by the new imperial President. We need to engage with Trump’s America and find the most productive partnership we can, hoping for the best and indeed a change in Washington at some point, this without being deluded by false hopes. We also need to support strongly those at home that want to restore the old American win-win ways. However, America today is no longer the America we knew. A new Mount McKinley in Alaska and its reminders of forgotten and different times is making Trump’s point in what matters today for the current US executive power.  

Warmest regards

Serge 

20-1-25

Dear Partners in Thought,

President Trump will always be strange to most rational people, all the more so due to his personality and style, combined with his likely feeling that he is now free to do whatever he wants without the executive and legislative guardrails of his first term. Both his obedience-first core team and all the Republican Senators and Representatives are now backing him without any doubt, reflecting his acumen in having changed the Republican Party and their expected human focus on preserving their own positions. Putting aside unforeseen issues that may have helped a Trump 2.0, such as “woke” and a weak Democratic leadership, America and the world are now in for a very different period of executive power in Washington that history and its books will make us remember for generations.   

The recent outlandish and unsettling Canada, Greenland, Panama Canal and Gulf of America statements we know were there with a potential transactional approach in mind, but also to appeal to the core MAGA base that needs America to be “strong” as they understand it – with benefits hopefully derived from this “long-needed” and “refreshing” approach for them.  Trump may also want to show them that it’s not only campaign-funding Big Tech and their deregulation needs that matter. It was interesting that Trump so far avoided any direct verbal attacks against key European countries. His focus was not totally devoid of a master plan, however dangerous for America and the new world it may foster.   

It is a now confirmed sign that, as expected, the post-Cold War and globalisation world may be changing, with Trump focusing on a narrower but stronger and more manageable core geographic area of American supremacy, also fitting a certain form of isolationism, which could be mostly centred on both Americas, this combined with expected tariff rises and an aggressive self-interest on trade and diplomacy globally. In that approach, he would likely be leaving China more or less in charge, to different extents, throughout Asia – apart from a far too big India – while Taiwan may remain on-and-off an issue of contention. A Trump 2.0 could leave Russia in control of Eurasia and gradually Eastern Europe, with players like Iran or North Korea being useful additions in its existential quest for revival. There is little doubt that both China and Russia will like the new US approach, all the more so given their own respective domestic challenges. Europe (Western and Central) is thus at great risk from a war-flavoured (economically and socially) Russia that may no longer be able to go back to old post-Cold War and globalisation ways. Given a new world that may arise, Europe should thus not rely any more for its security only on the US, whose values and principles (making the American Dream), together with its Western leadership nature, may de facto vanish. 

Trump is seen as a bully by most, even by his admirers who like it, but he could be a “transactional” one, even if this feature may be seen by potentially naïve old-fashioned foreign policy experts. We hear a lot that his “crazy” geopolitical statements, aimed at long-time allies of the US and not at its traditional enemies, are made to gain an edge on specific matters related to the potentially new primary American supremacy zone. In doing so, and while there might be a strange game plan in Trump’s mind that no close adviser will dare challenge, unlike in his first term given the “faithful first” team around him, Trump is not realising all the direct and indirect benefits that America gained since the end of WW2 – and even more so post-Cold War – in acting as the natural and beneficial leader of the West and, for long, most of the world. American leadership brought many benefits, not only politically but economically, also for the US private sector and its naturally globalised corporations. Foreign affairs and globalisation are obviously not topics that easily resonate with its core electoral base, even if it may usually be the case with most electorates in Western democracies for which the economy and their purchasing power matter first. The Trump isolationist or “withdrawing” approach, even if it might give the US a smaller but better focus, would cost America and his electorate dearly. Then the abandonment of the values and principles that made America strong and differentiated globally may also be very costly, as the US may become just another great power with the risk that many in the world might prefer China or Russia after all – this eventually with geopolitical realignments as Moscow and Beijing could also be very transactional, even with Europe. One of the side benefits of this American withdrawal (as we would see it in Europe) may be a much closer relationship with the UK and the EU since “being together” in such dire times would make eminent sense and might not be disrupted by the personal political ambitions of a few. On this latter point, it is amazing to think of the impact of key individuals (even if not really alone) on the world or their region, not to mention own country, thinking about Donald Trump or Boris Johnson.   

Post-election win, Trump has been strangely quiet on matters dealing with Russia or even China, the latter that was his arch-nemesis (arguably with a bipartisan mode) with Taiwan being the semi-conductor heaven and geopolitical sacred ground. Today he is not sure that he would ban China-rooted TikTok in the US, where 170 million people use it, even if the Supreme court, that he had re-engineered years back, was all for it. As for Russia, it is clear that his relationship with Putin matters, probably as he envies his executive style that is likely in his own mind more that of a true leader of a great power, this even if there ever were or not FSB files on his bad behaviour in a Moscow hotel. The statements that he would stop the Ukraine War in one day have not been heard recently, while the emphasis is on his being greatly instrumental in getting a cease-fire agreement between Hamas and Israel thanks to his own envoy, Secretary Blinken’s months of work having just been for show.          

One last point that is worth mentioning is the rise of the “tech industrial complex” oligarchy (or indeed ”broligarchy”) mentioned by Joe Biden in his farewell address. While there has been indeed a rise of an oligarchy that served US interests well at first given its tech focus, it is clear that many of its leaders wish to play a role that go well beyond their business remit. Musk openly exemplifies this mutation with his governmental role in making the US “more efficient” with DOGE, but he is now going well beyond this in promoting extremist political leaders in the UK and Germany while attacking allies on the way they run their own countries. It would be odd for Trump not to have been aware of Musk’s attacks on Starmer or the laudatory exchanges with the new and differentiated female leader of the AfD, this perhaps as it was an easier way to start a new foreign policy approach. We will note that Musk had nothing mean to say about Russia or of course China, which is the location of his largest Tesla factory. It is clear that Big Tech is keen on being close to a winning Trump to ensure his support on deregulation matters at home (see Zuckerberg and his new approach to Meta content), but crucially in relation to the EU where the likes of Commissioner Margrethe Vestager led the fight to regulate Big Tech, admittedly also as it was US-made. And then Peter Thiel, Musk’s Paypal partner and original Facebook funder, writes opinion pieces such as in the Financial Times recently about conspiracy theories and the end of the party of the Ancient Regime, leaving many scratching their heads. And Bezos rescued the Washington Post (notable, given our social media times) though it is not clear what the newspaper may become going forward as some articles have already suggested, even if it stayed neutral during the last election. Not all Big Tech is, of course, personified by individuals who may not be the most principled. Whatever his life style, Bill Gates, the model of what Big Tech should be and focus on, spent three hours with Trump which he found productive and were very acceptable given his historical innovation role (as a potential wink to Bezos, the Gates Foundation just gave $700,000 to the UK Independent Media Group to fund journalism in “under-reported” parts of the world).  

Looking at where we are, and putting aside Trump’s “differentiated” personality, management style and strategy, it is clear that the key word going forward when dealing with Washington will be “transactional”, and that Europe will have to show expertise, cunning and resolve. While we should do our best to engage with the US and keep NATO working, we will need to increase even further our own commitments to defence, hoping our various populations will understand what is at play and is required in terms of funding and organisational changes in this return of History. We can also hope that America wakes up, of course (maybe the 2026 mid-terms?), but this does not change the fact that Europe has been too reliant on Washington for too long, even if the latter wanted to be the august Western leader it indeed was. Defence will now be key and European resolve should be seen through a strong commitment to its own capabilities – as if there were no NATO – while working with it fully. In doing so, all key countries will also need to meaningfully contribute funding and avoid complacency, while no longer hiding behind any historical guilt, to focus more easily on business and economic matters. Those times are behind us.         

Populists of whatever flavour and geography may hurt democracy – as we have seen in recent decades, but especially today. They are now great at combining spectacular showbiz and easy vote-grabbing, as if it were a needed recipe, taking advantage of the always-usual resentment of many that form a core base – this today worryingly amplified with loneliness and social media, especially with younger generations. And then they rarely deliver unless they adjust to reality, like recently in Italy while elections, when they still exist, become a sham like in Venezuela. As a Transatlantic European who believed in, and enjoyed, the “American Dream” I felt hurt by the recent American political developments and their impact on the world, also knowing the past decades had been great for Americans. However, this new populist development in the US had some benefits that perhaps were also needed. In an unexpected turn of events, and even if we should always hope for a return to a globalised world and the Western leadership we knew, Trump’s strange initiative may not help the US, but it could make a much stronger EU (and also Europe) with old friends getting back together anew, all while focusing on the tools of independence like enhanced defence and efficient coordination. All while hoping for America to return to its better ways, then also enjoying the benefits of a better-balanced alliance – this for all involved. Trump is not the America we need – something all my sound American friends would agree with.  

Warmest regards,

Serge