Europe’s anxiety about Trump isn’t widely shared across the globe

The very things that makes the president-elect’s return so scary for many Europeans are what make him attractive to the rest of the world. Jan. 15, 2025

We are experiencing the biggest crisis in transatlantic relations since Suez. But it is unfolding in such a bizarre manner that nobody can quite get their head around it.

The richest man in the world, who is about to become a quasi-official in the incoming U.S. administration, has declared he’s trying to overthrow the British government — and probably the German one as well.

President-elect Donald Trump himself has already indicated he wants to overturn every single tenet of the U.S.-led order. And his recent comments on the Panama Canal and Greenland show he’s even ready to question principles like territorial sovereignty and the inviolability of borders.

The last time Trump was elected, many in the U.S. and around the world took comfort in the idea that Europe would step into the breach. They declared then-German Chancellor Angela Merkel the true leader of the free world — a role immortalized in an iconic G7 photo where’s she’s flanked by the leaders of the world’s major democracies, looming over a sulking Trump. But today, Europe has based its entire security, economic and political strategy on the existence of an American ally that Trump has now declared extinct.

However, a major opinion poll conducted by my organization, the European Council on Foreign Relations,shows that Europe’s anxiety about Trump is not widely shared.

After talking to 28,000 individuals across 24 countries, we found that the vast majority of people around the world think Trump is, in fact, good for the U.S., good for the world and good for global peace.…

(Politico always starts with Trump drama)

https://www.politico.eu/article/europe-anxiety-donald-trump-globe-mark-leonard/