Germane: Trump 2.0 Zeitgeist

Within hours of Germany’s election results, its chancellor-in-waiting Friedrich Merz’s first comment captured Europe’s sentiment on Trump the Second. Merz, a long-time Atlanticist, spoke in terms never heard from a German leader.He would seek “independence” from US, he said. From “Trump’s latest comments in the last week, it is clear the Americans, or at least this portion of the Americans, this govt, care very little about the fate of Europe,” he added. He even wondered if it were time “to establish an independent European defence capability much more quickly”.Once, Europe may have feared Germany rearming itself; now, it fears a future in which it doesn’t. In short, it is pointless to wonder whether Europe is minded to work on defence rearmament and to re-school itself on the benefits of guns over butter. It has no choice.The Ukraine conflict has entered its fourth year with Trump’s America sweet-talking the Russians and talking tough to the Europeans and Ukrainians.Trump’s defence secretary Pete Hegseth has said his boss won’t let anyone “turn Uncle Sam into Uncle Sucker”. It is a harsh reference to Europe’s propensity to pick butter over gun oil, all the while sheltering under the US nuclear umbrella and protected by America’s conventional military power. Meanwhile, Trump’s Vice-President JD Vance stood in Munich and plunged a dagger into Europe’s heart. It is too weak, too liberal and too ideologically diverse to be worth protecting any longer, he said, deeming the primary threat to come “from within”.The European response has been a mix of shock, sadness and sharp anger, with the last emotion serving as a spur for lots of talk and limited action. As Europe sees it, Trump the Second is providing a masterclass in 21st century imperialism of the most unreconstructed sort.This, in meekly acquiescing to Ukraine’s territorial carve-up by Kremlin, whimsically upending 80 years of the transatlantic alliance and basely arguing for liberal democracy to be unmade by far-right nationalists.The subtext is MAGAverse’s war on ‘woke’ but Europe also fears a physical challenge beyond culture skirmishes. This involves the approximately 100,000 US troops stationed across Europe.Long considered a major deterrent against Russia, it’s thought that Europe would struggle to defend itself against attack if US suddenly pulled its forces. Despite having more than a million full-time troops of its own, Europe cannot be sure they’ll be battle-ready and adequately equipped, all at the same time, if needed.How has it come to this? The real story is told in numbers.After the cold war ended, EU countries made it a habit to pare military spending to the bone, even as they passed around generous pats of butter (spending on health, education, pensions etc) to fatten the welfare state. By 2014, today’s 27 EU member states were spending under 1.4% of their collective GDP on defence.Brexit or not, the British still largely adhere to this most European of traits. In 1945, UK spent over half its GDP – a massive 52% – on defence. In 2025, it devotes roughly 2.3% to military matters. After the 1956 Suez crisis, when Egypt seized control of the canal from the British- and French-owned company that managed it, UK turned its face to the wall in metaphorical recognition it was no longer a global power, military or otherwise. Finding security in its so-called “special relationship” with Washington, it renounced much of its self-reliance. Indeed, its nuclear power rests on a delicate reality – those leased Trident missiles could technically be disabled by US.Until now, Europe’s public spending habits seemed like a prose version of John Lennon’s poetic anthem of peace. Butter was the peace dividend, earned in the wake of two devastating world wars.A bloodied continent, infamous for religious and sectarian wars, laboured over the world’s biggest experiment in peacebuilding, creating a system for multinational exchanges, governance, regulation and trade. And European countries started to spend their money on schools and well-being schemes rather than soldiers and military supplies.It made sense, so long as the Americans, with their vast resources and stated commitment to the western alliance, were willing to safeguard the status quo.Now, those decades seem short-sighted, self-indulgent, sybaritic even. As an aphorism attributed to a high-ranking Nazi official put it, “guns will make us powerful; butter will only make us fat.”Clearly, Europe needs less Isigny Sainte-Mère, Kerrygold, Lurpak or any other of its many excellent brands of butter, but to invest in its own defence. Merz’s defining mission – of “independence” from US – will need money. Discussions on how to raise European national military budgets and find new financial mechanisms have thrown up some ideas that could be viable.These include an existing pandemic-era template for bond-issuance and a ‘rearmament bank’ modelled on European Bank for Reconstruction and Development to draw in non-EU members such as UK and Norway. The founder of Nato Innovation Fund has suggested another banking structure that would be open to partners beyond Europe.Some countries are already shopping for hardware. Announcing its biggest military investment in half a century, Denmark recently took defence spending to more than 3% of economic output by dropping the usual tender processes for arms procurement. Britain has promised to swiftly raise its defence spending by at least £5bn a year, which is roughly equivalent to 10% of the core schools’ budget in England.Seeking hard power after decades of being a lifestyle superpower may not be an optional add-on to the European way any longer. It is an existential issue. With or without the butter.