Who Will Lead Europe Now?

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/07/opinion/g7-europe-trump-macron-leadership.html

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PARIS — In a book just published, “The World As It Is,” Barack Obama’s former deputy national security adviser, Ben Rhodes, tells of a tear in Angela Merkel’s eye as she bade farewell to the departing American president for the final time in Berlin on Nov. 17, 2016. Nine days earlier, the election of his successor, Donald J. Trump, had shaken the world. Nowhere had the tremor been felt deeper than in Europe; the German chancellor told Mr. Obama that she saw it as her duty to run for a fourth term because of Mr. Trump. “She’s all alone,” Mr. Obama noted. Someone had to take on the mantle and defend the liberal international order.

Chancellor Merkel ran, barely won and spent the next six months negotiating a governing coalition. In the meantime, in France, Emmanuel Macron won a stunning victory against his far-right opponent, Marine Le Pen. Last month, as President Macron was about to fly to St. Petersburg to meet President Vladimir V. Putin, I asked a Russian diplomat how the French head of state would be perceived in Russia. “As the leader of the Western world,” he replied. Having apparently given up on an American administration they have learned not to trust because of its leader’s unpredictability and the checks, balances and investigations that limit him, the Russians are putting their scorn of Europeans on hold in hopes of finding someone more reliable to talk to.

That the “Western world” still exists in the eyes of the Russians is certainly reassuring, since the very existence of the West is now being questioned within the trans-Atlantic community. When the leaders of the G-7 countries (United States, Canada, Germany, France, Italy, Britain and Japan) gather in Quebec on Friday for their annual meeting, it will be no love feast. Already having shrunk from G-8 after Russia was excluded following the annexation of Crimea in 2014, the group was described last week as the “G-6+1” by Bruno Le Maire, the French finance minister, as he and other European ministers were angrily confronting the American Treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, over President Trump’s decision to impose tariffs on steel and aluminum imports.

But don’t bet on the “G-6” to spearhead a united assault to defend the free world. Italy is now also led by populists and Britain is absorbed in deep soul-searching as it severs its links with the European Union. At a security summit on Asia last week, Singapore’s defense minister, Ng Eng Hen, declined to call Britain “a European power.”

“I don’t know what you are now,” he added, perplexed.

Welcome to the world of 2018, when we celebrate the centenary of the end of World War I and indulge in nostalgic reminiscence of the popular upheavals of 1968, 50 years ago, while our current international order is in disarray. This may well end up as the year of the awakening of Europe. We will have one man to thank for opening our eyes: Donald J. Trump.

Harsh words have been uttered on both sides of the Atlantic, but the word that sticks most in European capitals these days is “humiliation” — a feeling also shared in Canada. Humiliation, that is, at the hands of your staunchest ally. When President Trump withdraws from the Iranian nuclear deal a few days after the French president and the German chancellor have gone to Washington with a passionate plea to save it, it is humiliating. When he declares tariffs on steel and aluminum imports on grounds of national security, it is insulting. The era when American officials, even at times of disagreement, managed to keep a minimum of civility with their allies is over. President Trump, Mr. Mnuchin and Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross are uncannily unpleasant. The ambassadors who represent America are undiplomatic.

Rudeness is this administration’s trademark. No wonder the discussion between the G-7 ministers of finance last week was heated. As a senior French official who sought anonymity for reasons of diplomacy, admitted, “G6+1 does describe a reality.”

What the Europeans are finally starting to understand is that the crisis at hand is not only about bad manners. It is about a fundamental change in the trans-Atlantic relationship. Most likely, it is about the end of the world order as we have known it. The process started well before President Trump’s election, but his predecessor, Mr. Obama, had put such an elegant touch to it that the Europeans were in denial about it, as Ms. Merkel’s tear showed only too well.

“Donald Trump is breaking diplomatic rules and he does not even care,” Claudia Major, an expert with the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, told me. “We think he is weird and that after him, it will get better. No! This would be our biggest mistake,” she said. Arnaud Danjean, a French member of the European Parliament, says that many European leaders “would like to go back to the good old days, when the United States was in charge. This is their comfort zone. But it won’t happen.”

A somber mood has fallen on the European foreign policy community, now conscious that this Jacksonian moment for their American partner will outlive Donald Trump. An offhand bit of hyperbole I heard from one French security expert hinted at the level of disappointment: “Would the United States react if Russian tanks rolled into Latvia? I am not even sure. NATO is a dead man walking.”

At the annual conference of the European Council on Foreign Relations in Paris last week, George Soros warned of “an existential danger” for Europe and insisted that Europe “must reinvent itself.” This is what President Macron has been advocating for a year. But as the initial enthusiasm over his election dies down, lengthy pleas for a “strong multilateralism” seem to fall on deaf ears. The young, energetic French president has a lot of admirers but few supporters. “He is our last hope,” a Central European government minister told me, making sure that his comment was “off the record.” It took Ms. Merkel a full nine months to formulate a response to Emmanuel Macron’s proposals to strengthen the European Union. When she finally did, last Sunday in a newspaper interview, her positions were so cautious that one wondered why it had taken her so long. “Still a lot of work to do,” sighed the senior French official.

Yet there is no choice. Neither China nor Russia offer Europe an alternative to the United States. The continent will still maintain a special relationship with Washington, but it must start building its own version of a rule-based international order. It cannot envisage another way of relating to other powers, because the European Union itself is in essence a rule-based regional order.

There are many hurdles along the way. Italy’s new populist leaders will probably be pushing east, toward Mr. Putin. Poland’s populist leaders will be pushing west, toward Mr. Trump. But take notice: none of them wishes to leave the European Union. It is now up to France and Germany to lead together, as they’ve done since shortly after World War II, and up to the northern member states to play a more active role.

Ms. Merkel is finally ready. So let’s move on now.