FIIA Snapshots

Katja Creutz
Programme Director, Global Security and Governance

When the UN member states convened in New York for the Summit of the Future in September 2024, the major powers showed meagre enthusiasm for revamping multilateralism or addressing global challenges. Yet, the international community faces many pressing challenges that need attention and particularly – collective action. Some of these problems, like climate change, rapid technological development or nuclear proliferation, are even considered potentially existential threats to humanity.

For multilateral institutions and their concomitant diplomatic corps working on managing global challenges, Trump represents more difficulties in already strained times. As a known transactionalist, Trump refused to play by the institutionalist-handbook during his first term. He withdrew the United States from a number of international institutions and agreements, including the UN Human Rights Council, UNESCO, the Paris Climate Agreement, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, and the Trans-Pacific Partnership. His aversion to multilateral organizations and commitments seem to go across different policy issues.

It is highly likely that the second Trump administration will detach from the same international fora anew or even go for a wider range of withdrawals, as we witness speculations about a potential withdrawal even from NATO. International institutions and international law are in the line of fire, as well as crucial US funding for multilateral institutions. The UN ended 2023 with a cash deficit of USD 400 million and having been forced to even temporarily shut down its Geneva Headquarters due to lack of money. The world organization is in for more financial trouble, should Trump and the Republicans decide to act on their claims of the UN being biased against Israel. Moreover, any potential reforms of international organizations with greater effectiveness and representation in mind, battle severe headwind.

Trump’s second administration will assume power in a markedly more geopolitically divided world than last time. This will hamper his opportunity to act as a broker in conflicts such as Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, although Trump has proclaimed his intentions to end the war. Neither will we see any negotiations with North Korea – Russia’s latest ally. Washington will remain firmly behind its ally Israel, thereby diminishing any prospects for a cease fire in the Gaza War or the broader Middle East conflict. There are no signs that Trump would put the largest displacement crisis in the world, the conflict in Sudan, on his list of priorities. With the UN Security Council being a victim of the deteriorating international political climate, peace and security will remain in crisis.

Another specific policy sector which one can expect to be adversely affected by the future Trump administration is human rights. In his first term, Trump withdrew from the UN Human Rights Council and cut, among other things, funding for sexual and reproductive rights. But Trump’s disengagement with human protection is broader than not actively participating in the work of the UN Human Rights Council. During his previous term in the office, Washington lashed out at the International Criminal Court by sanctioning and imposing travel restrictions upon certain Court officials. Ukraine’s and the European Union’s staunch efforts to ensure international (criminal) justice for the war crimes committed in the war against Ukraine, will certainly suffer a blow.

The question that merits consideration is who will fill up the void left by the United States in different policy sectors. With the US increasingly not in the room or around the same table, Europe is left without its traditional partner in several issues ranging from security to human rights. Other powers will certainly seize the opportunity to broaden and deepen their influence. While allowing more voices to be heard is beneficial for the legitimacy of global governance per se, Europe needs to be aware of the fact that many other states, especially from the so-called Global South, pursue a different agenda. For example, when the first Trump administration withdrew from the UN Human Rights Council, China proactively raised its stakes tabling several resolutions that sought to take human rights towards an alternative reading built on consensual cooperation rather than hard legal obligations and international scrutiny. China has overall invested in global diplomacy, and its room for maneuver will increase if US retires to the background.

Europe must now prepare for a continuous, or even accelerating, downward spiral of multilateral cooperation. It should not trust Trump’s deals in his second term to favour anything but America itself – in a Trumpian understanding of the word. However, it would be good to pay attention to the fact that the overall political support in the United States towards multilateral cooperation might be waning. The Biden administration just announced in September 2024 that it does not seek a second consecutive term in the UN Human Rights Council. Neither has Washington sought to change the deadlock in the World Trade Organization. If Europe reads the political signs correctly, there is no reason to further postpone the making of a more geopolitical Europe.

Maria Lindén
Research Fellow, The Center on US Politics and Power

Ville Sinkkonen
Senior Research Fellow, Global Security and Governance  

Charly Salonius-Pasternak
Leading researcher, The Center on US Politics and Power

Cordelia Buchanan Ponczek
Research Fellow, The European Union and Strategic Competition

The second Trump Administration will be better prepared and likely have the power to drive domestic policy changes that substantially alter US society. His views on allies and trade remain unchanged. Trump’s goal of fostering a new American Golden Age will be significantly impacted by contingency and world events.

Domestic Politics
With likely full control of Congress and a supportive Supreme Court having extended presidential immunity, President Trump is poised to have the power to significantly impact domestic policies, politics and ultimately American society. Trump will begin his second term much better prepared to govern than at the start of his first term, with pre-existing policy plans and lists of individuals suitable for thousands of political appointee positions.

According to democracy researchers, the United States underwent autocratization during Trump’s first term, and Trump seems poised to take his country several steps towards autocracy during his second term, weakening the quality of American democracy further. Based on Trump’s campaign promises and newspaper reports detailing his plans, Trump is planning a sweeping expansion of presidential power.

Retribution was an important topic of Trump’s 2024 campaign, and he repeatedly labeled fellow Americans “the enemy within”, including his political opponents, journalists, and his former officials and allies who have turned into his critics. He will try to use the federal government to punish these individuals. Trump is also planning an executive order that will allow him to terminate federal employees’ contracts and replace them with loyalists (Schedule-F).

Immigration is one of Trump’s top issues, and he has promised “starting on day one” a historically massive deportation of unauthorized immigrants, which would include rounding people up in large detention camps. In addition, he has plans to implement a new entry ban for certain Muslim-majority nations, a policy of refusing asylum claims, and an ideological screening for visa applicants.

Trump ran on a campaign that promised a better economic future for Americans. On the campaign trail, Trump spoke about economic and business initiatives, such as plans to extend the 2017 tax cuts, and the imposition of significant tariffs on goods from other countries, including against the largest trading and investment partner of the United States, the European Union. Such tariffs would impose an effective tax on citizens, increase inflation, and further contribute to the deterioration of the international rules-based trading system. Still, US markets responded favorably to the news of Trump’s election, in anticipation of lowered regulation and tax cuts, as well as relative stability during the transition / transfer of power period.

Trump and the Republican party will want to put their own stamp on government programs that have a positive perceived economic impact on voters. When in power, fiscal conservatism is dead in the Republican Party, and GOP leaders know that policies like the Inflation Reduction Act, the Affordable Care Act, and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law are having a positive effect, with a vast majority—around 75%—of projects facilitated by the IRA having benefitted regions that voted for Trump. A full repeal of these laws is thus unlikely. Rather, a “re-work and re-brand” approach seems more likely.

Key questions to follow are: How will American society – especially democracy, rights and freedoms – evolve during the second Trump administration? How will views of voters on the economy develop? What different ideological frames are visible among the core staff? Two possible framing devices are: a Silicon Valley startup inspired “Fail. Fail faster” -approach which requires disruption and fast iterative improvement, with high risk and failure tolerance. A second is a generational-revolutionary framing, where a (generated) crisis ultimately gives rise to a new Golden Age of America. In this framing, some chaos is desirable so that a new, better, and healthier society can emerge.

It has become ever more difficult to disaggregate domestic from international affairs. Support for US foreign policies, particularly the hard-power dependent hegemonic aspects of it have been reliant on soft power and certain American behaviors, that for many countries have marked a particular kind of (largely positive) American Hegemony, which enabled an imperfect but genuine ‘rules based international order’. The reality and perceptions of future US domestic policies may have unexpected impacts on foreign policy options.

Foreign Policy
Trump is a mercurial transactionalist, who seems to hold an uncomplicated understanding of power in the international arena: in a zero-sum world, American dominance is ensured through economic and military prowess combined with his bombastic rhetoric and reputation as an unpredictable dealmaker with allies and adversaries alike.

Trump’s disdain for entangling alliances, as well as global institutions or agreements is well established – and remains. Trump will undoubtedly press for more defense spending from US allies in Europe and Asia, using the threat of rescinding American security commitments as leverage. Moreover, he is likely to withdraw from treaties and fora that he views as damaging to US interests.

Trump is aware of the increasingly restraint-oriented sentiment of the American body politic, which is tired of American involvement in overseas wars. Thus, while Trump wants to lead the strongest military in the world, he will likely eschew using it preemptively in ways that could create more entanglements; individual air-strikes and special operations efforts will continue. This will open opportunities for would-be challengers to continue to test the US position in the world and/or create new facts on the ground favorable to the challengers’ interests.

Trump’s dealmaking instinct will be on display regarding wars in Europe and the Middle East. Trump seems set on bringing both Kyiv and Moscow to the negotiation table through a combination of carrots and sticks, likely on terms that harken back to Thucydides, where ”the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must”. However, were Russia to overplay its hand, Trump will not accept feeling like he has lost or been embarrassed and might actively seek to limit Russian power. The Abraham Accords have been regarded as one of Trump’s foreign policy successes, suggesting he is likely to pursue similar deals, such as one between Israel and Saudi Arabia.

In addition to contributing to domestic hardship and chaos, Trump’s expected trade and migration related policies are likely to create international consternation and condemnation. The effort to put into practice “the largest mass deportation in US history,” would itself reverberate across the globe.

Security officials in the first Trump administration managed to thwart some of the President’s most outlandish policy positions or at least limit their fallout, such as wanting to withdraw from NATO. For the second administration, a focus on loyalty combined with competence when choosing high-level appointees may reduce this “thwarting” but, tensions could still arise between Trump and his team, as there are at least a few different worldviews represented among likely staff. For example, some potential Trump appointees favor a muscular approach towards Beijing in both economic and military terms, but Trump himself might ultimately care more about a deal that addresses the trade imbalance between the US and China – a prospect that might rattle America’s Indo-Pacific allies. Similar split-dynamics could be seen regarding relations with Russia and the European Union – the latter being to Trump a largely alien institution.

Key questions to follow are: Which theatres of strategic competition will the Trump administration prioritise in the short, medium and long term? From Trump’s perspective, in what spheres of great power competition might EU and US interests align? To what extent would a Trump team push for issue-linkages between trade and security questions, with both allies (Europe, Indo-Pacific) and adversaries (esp. China)?

Mikael Mattlin
Acting Deputy Director, head of Center on Global Orders and China (CORD).

The internationally most popular American presidents are not always the ones whose foreign policy later is judged to be the most effective, or the most consequential. Throughout his first term as president, Donald Trump was quite unpopular in Europe, and his theatrics and unpredictability were widely deplored. Yet when it comes to US China policy, arguably president-elect Donald Trump has already been the most consequential American president since Richard Nixon’s détente with China in the early 1970s and Jimmy Carter’s switching of diplomatic recognition from the Republic of China (ROC) to the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1979. Observers would thus be wise to give the second Trump term the benefit of doubt, at least when it comes to China policy.

Among the consequential changes brought by the first Trump administration was his launching of trade and technology wars with China in 2018 that have largely been continued, and even expanded on, by the Biden administration. The first Trump administration also shifted the US post-9-11 focus on combating international terrorism towards depicting China and Russia as the main security challenges in the 2017 US National Security Strategy. Arguably, this shift and Trump’s rhetoric was instrumental in bringing about a broader shift also among most allied countries’ China policies. In short, it became acceptable, even in polite European company, to take an openly and harshly critical stance on China. We now take this for granted, but 15 years earlier amid the engagement policies of Europe, such talk would have raised eyebrows.

Another consequential change was in the US upgrading its engagement with Taiwan, starting with an unprecedented phone call in December 2016 between Trump and Taiwan’s leader Tsai Ing-wen, to whom Trump referred to with the official title “President of the Republic of China”. Later in his term he signed into law the Taiwan Travel Act (2018) that encourages visits between the US and Taiwan at all levels, as well as the Taiwan Allies International Protection and Enhancement Initiative (TAIPEI) Act (2019) that expresses support for Taiwan’s diplomatic alliances around the world, and advocates for Taiwan’s membership in all international organisations in which statehood is not a requirement and of which the US is also a member.

Many of the threatening actions against Taiwan taken by the PRC in recent years, such as gradually increasing military pressure through growing military presence around Taiwan, and military rehearsals that step-by-step have grown in size, sophistication and proximity to Taiwan, have been responses either to actions taken by Taiwan or by the US to upgrade its engagement with Taiwan.

Ironically, upon coming to office in 2016, Trump was actually quite popular in China, and the Chinese government may even have harboured some hopes that his business background and infatuation with dealmaking would allow for pragmatic deals with him. As late as in 2018–19, much of the discussion in China was still rather hopeful that Trump’s tough acts on China would be a temporary aberration before getting back to business.

This time around, Beijing does not harbour any such illusions. China has spent the intervening years derisking and shielding its economy in numerous ways. The 2022 Communist Party Congress work report put a heavy focus on security throughout all areas of the society and economy. China is now less reliant on trade with the United States, including on technology imports from it.

The Madman Theory of international relations – commonly associated with Richard Nixon, but an idea that was mentioned already by Machiavelli in the 16th century – holds that it may sometimes be advantageous in bargaining to make the opponent think that you are volatile and irrational. While the empirical evidence for this claim is equivocal, Trump may be in a better position to act out the theory than Nixon was, although there are also those who think that behind the veil of unpredictability, Trump is in some ways rather predictable in his behaviour.

Beijing will probably initially give Trump the benefit of the doubt for a brief period to test how his second term China policy will shape up. However, should it turn out to be more of the same (harsh rhetoric, new tariffs and sanctions on China, and more support for Taiwan), Beijing will likely conclude that there is no space for improvement in relations, and thus double down on what it has been doing recently: derisking and shielding its economy, pursuing a new charm offensive both in the Global South, in East Asia and in Europe, while accelerating military preparedness, including its conventional military and nuclear build-up.    

In Taiwan, the fear is that Trump’s unpredictability and dealmaking propensity carries a considerable risk. At the very least the Taiwanese are wary that Washington will exact a heavy price for its de facto security protection, such as demanding that the world-leading Taiwanese chipmaker TSMC invest in the US and build some of its most advanced semiconductor foundries there. Unsurprisingly, the Taiwanese would have preferred to see Kamala Harris as president.

The EU is in a tricky position as well. As the French President recently put it: Europe is a herbivore in a world of carnivores. There are several likely scenarios related to Trump’s China policy that the EU and its member states need to prepare a response to. The US, and especially the Pentagon, has already for some time been wholly focused on the strategic and military challenges presented by China, the ‘pacing challenge’ for the Americans.  The new Trump administration is likely to accelerate this process, leaving Europe shouldering more of the burden for its own defence and for supporting Ukraine. The Trump administration is also likely to introduce new tariffs, mainly targeting China, but also hitting Europe. In a situation where China’s exports and trade surplus are growing rapidly, this may also divert trade flows and increase trade frictions between China and the EU.

Finally, related to Taiwan, the range of imaginable (even if unlikely) outcomes is vast: from making some sort of deal with China over Taiwan to threatening to strike Chinese cities in retaliation for a military move by China on Taiwan, or even re-recognising the Republic of China. Trump will have a rare advantage that may bolster his credentials in playing the Madman card: as it looks now, Republicans will control both the Senate and the House, and Trump has a strong grip over his party. This is of importance in case of a future military contingency over Taiwan. The Taiwan Relations Act of 1979 that governs relations between the United States and the ROC since the US switched recognition, requires that Congress is on board in a response by the American government to threats towards Taiwan’s security.

Taiwan is the place where the Madman Theory may really be put to the test. This will serve to keep both Beijing and Taipei on the edge. And the EU would be wise to think in advance of its response to a range of unlikely, although far from impossible, scenarios.

Harri Mikkola
Programme Director, Finnish Foreign Policy, Northern European Security and NATO

From the end of the Cold War until Russia’s full-scale war of aggression against Ukraine, the Arctic was seen as an exceptional area of peace and cooperation between the West and Russia. The dynamics of the region were characterised by well-functioning international cooperation focusing on the themes of climate change, environmental protection and sustainable development. Russia’s war of aggression effectively crippled this cooperation, heightened hard security dynamics and changed the balance of power in the broader Northern European theatre with Finland’s and Sweden’s NATO memberships.

Before the war of aggression, the first time the Arctic multilateral governance was severely challenged was during Trump’s previous presidency. Many remember the Arctic Council’s Rovaniemi ministerial meeting in 2019, which ended scandalously: for the first time in history, the Council was unable to reach a final declaration when the Trump administration refused to mention climate change in the final text. Ahead of the meeting then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo gave a speech highlighting the region as an area of confrontation and competition. This, too, shocked many and went against the traditional spirit of Arctic cooperation.

More broadly, the dynamics in the Arctic were influenced by Trump’s climate denialism and contempt for climate diplomacy, culminating in Trump’s decision to withdraw the United States from the Paris climate agreement. However, in the field of defence, the importance of the Arctic region for the U.S. increased and the country’s focus on the region sharpened. The country produced, among other things, the Arctic strategies of the various branches of the armed forces, which highlighted the region as an arena for confrontation and great power competition. US militarily presence in the Northern Europe strengthened, with for instance military cooperation with Finland intensifying. Trump’s eyebrow-raising idea of buying Greenland also made headlines, further highlighting that geostrategic dynamics of the region were on Trump’s administration’s radar.

Trump’s previous presidency gives a certain indication of the politics of the coming term. The themes of traditional Arctic cooperation will be increasingly challenged. It is to be expected that Trump’s contempt for multilateral governance will continue, as will the erosion of US climate diplomacy. This significantly complicates the remaining cooperation between Western countries in the Arctic and further obscures the remains of Arctic cooperation dynamics. Experts broadly agree that Trump is now better prepared and more determined than during his first term, and one can expect swift changes in the US climate policy as well as environmental policy – it can be expected that Trump will open new areas of the American Arctic for hydrocarbon drilling, for instance.

Geopolitically, however, the operating environment is very different from that of Trump’s first term. Relations between the West and Russia are at rock bottom, and it is not credible to think that Arctic diplomacy can be successfully used to reduce tensions – Russia’s broader revisionist challenge is greater than this. The war in Ukraine has led to a significant intensification of cooperation between China and Russia, which in many respects focuses on cooperation in the Russian Arctic. Trump sees China as the number one challenger to the United States, whose growth of influence he wants to curb around the world. This may mean an even sharper focus on US footprint in the Arctic region, and at the same time closer cooperation between the US and the Nordic countries, for example.

Other options cannot be ruled out, however. The Arctic is of utmost importance for Russia and the country has portrayed all Western military activities in the region as ‘destabilizing’. Trump is well known for his admiration of authoritarian leaders, and he has said that he ‘gets along’ with Putin. If Trump for some peculiar reason ends up appeasing Russia, then the US presence in the Arctic may also reduce. However, this is not the most credible scenario, given the US national interests in the region and the depth and complexity of the fall-out between Russia and the United States.

As a result of the Russian aggression, the Western cooperation in the Arctic region focuses on developing deterrence and defence. Although the United States’ attention is likely to focus more and more on the Pacific region, the country’s military activity in the Arctic region is unlikely to diminish, thanks to the growing geostrategic importance of the Arctic region, including nuclear weapon dynamics and China’s increasing presence. If Trump begins to question NATO’s actions and undermine the alliance’s credibility, this will further emphasize the importance of regional defense cooperation in the European Arctic. This entails, in particular, closer bilateral cooperation between the various Nordic countries and the United States, also further intensified Nordic cooperation. This also means the need to further develop the ‘Northern bastion’ and defence cooperation formats under the threshold of the Article Five, such as the British-led Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF). Although NATO’s credibility may suffer, stronger regional focus on defence and increased national defence spending may lead also to positive results when it comes to defence and deterrence in the European Arctic.

Arkady Moshes
Programme Director, Russia, EU’s Eastern Neighbourhood and Eurasia

When Donald Trump was elected as the President of the United States in November 2016, Russian MPs were uncorking champagne. In November 2024, Russian president Vladimir Putin was reluctant for a day and a half to squeeze out of himself even a word of congratulations. This is the best possible illustration of the change of mood in the Kremlin that has taken place within eight years. In 2016 Moscow felt euphoric and even triumphant to see Trump elected. Now it looks concerned. And this posture is stable and consistent. Conceivably, when in February 2024 Putin said that Moscow would prefer to see in the White House the same Joe Biden, and not Donald Trump, Russia’s leader might have been telling the truth.

It is quite plausible, that Putin’s analysts concluded that Trump’s return to the presidency would be more problematic for Russia than a cautious “more of the same” that could be expected in case the Democrats would stay in power. Now, arguably, a combination of structural problems in the bilateral relations with Trump’s unpredictability and extravaganza will be very challenging for Putin’s system.

The structural impasse explains why all previous attempts to achieve even a modicum of partnership between Moscow and Washington failed. Bill Clinton’s summits with his “friend Boris”, George Bush’s look into “Putin’s soul”, Barack Obama’s “reset” and Trump’s own promise “to get along” with Putin would all end up in a similar vein: in the end of every presidential term the relationship was worse than in the beginning.

The big issues that determine this path dependence are: the legacy of the Cold War, especially in the nuclear domain and in arms control more generally, where the name of the game was US vs Russia; minuscule amount of bilateral economic exchange which prevented the emergence of systemic money-driven lobbyism; deep mutual mistrust resulting from Moscow’s propensity to see any regime change, from Serbia to Libya to Ukraine (to, potentially, Russia itself), as a subversive activity of Washington, and, in turn, Russia’s attempts to intervene in the political process in America; Russia’s “crusade” against “the unipolar world” (named US hegemony) and its rapprochement with China at the moment when the US sees the latter as the primary rival.

During his first term in office, Donald Trump, unlike some of his predecessors, demonstrated that he would not be afraid to aggravate existing tensions with Russia and, if need be, create new conflicts. In April 2017, a US missile strike on Syria’s governmental forces showed that Washington was not going to discuss its actions in the Middle East with Moscow. In February 2018 Russian PMC Wagner detachments suffered heavy losses from US troops fire in the Syrian province of Deir al-Zour. Most importantly, Trump lifted a taboo on deliveries of lethal weapons to Ukraine. In April 2018 a decision was taken to give Ukraine “Javelin” anti-tank systems that later played a key role in cementing Ukraine’s defences when Russian invasion started in February 2022.

Those experts who now express concerns as regards Trump’s possible lack of interest in helping Ukraine should remember this presidential record of his. Furthermore, they should at least ask themselves – and audiences they target – one crucial question. Can the US, with or without Trump, afford a defeat of the entire West in Ukraine? Or should the US rather be interested in preventing a battlefield success of a country – Russia – that is increasingly viewed in the West as China’s proxy? And whatever their answer is, these experts should provide their vision of how a would-be deal might look like and what are the trade-offs that could be offered.

Meanwhile, Moscow’s demands are quite far-reaching. The reasons for this are not only the advancement of the Russian troops, Moscow’s diplomatic successes in the Global South or an insufficient effectiveness of Western economic sanctions. It is also the understanding of the risks related to the post-war period, when the “rally-around-the-flag” effect weakens, and the economy would have to go back to the peacetime regime. To be able to tackle those risks, Putin will need to demonstrate a total victory, namely: Russia’s territorial expansion recognized by the West, sanctions lifted, frozen Russian assets returned, and Russia’s de facto veto on major issues of European security, like NATO enlargement, re-established. And at the same time Ukraine will stay economically ruined and politically destabilized, or worse – totally depopulated.

If Putin refuses to make concessions, shall one expect that Trump will continue patiently pursuing the diplomatic path? Or, on the contrary, will he lose self-control and resort to pressure? In October 2024 Trump stated in an interview that he would be ready to strike on the “center of Moscow”, which is hardly a promise of the normalization of relations.

Everything we know about characters of both Putin and Trump suggests that a deal between them, either on Ukraine or the one across the board, is not likely. Instead of sinking in the doom and gloom, Europeans should start preparing a proposal on how to better share the costs of helping Ukraine and keeping the West together.

Manuel Müller
Senior Research Fellow, The European Union and Strategic Competition

Cordelia Buchanan Ponczek
Research Fellow, The European Union and Strategic Competition

For the European Union, the re-election of Donald Trump is a gaping uncertainty. Guided by the precedent of Trump’s previous term, European leaders are wary of transactional tactics and disruption of norms and values. Trump could stop US support for Ukraine, weaken NATO, reduce American action on climate, implement high tariffs and start trade wars, fuel far-right discourses, and prompt others to emulate particularly harsh and cruel policies on asylum, gender policy, and treatment of vulnerable populations.

Optimists suggest there could be a silver lining. As destabilizing as Donald Trump’s administration might be, it could serve as an electric jolt to the heart of the EU and bring member states to pull together. According to this “salutary shock” theory, a vacuum of US involvement could lead the EU to step into a more powerful role as a regional security provider, build new global partnerships, and become a leader on initiatives like the energy transition. To do this, EU member states would need to put aside national misgivings and push through reforms, like joint investments in the European industry, joint bonds to finance climate and defence spending, and institutional changes to increase decision-making efficiency.

This is a tall order. But if the EU wants to rise to the occasion, it is clear what it must do. On economic and fiscal policy, NextGenerationEU is a successful blueprint for common EU bonds, and the Letta and Draghi reports have proposed further steps to strengthen the single market. On foreign policy, approaches like “strategic autonomy” have been discussed for years, and Sauli Niinistö has recently suggested ways to increase European preparedness. On institutions, there is a plethora of reform proposals, and the European Parliament has even drafted a new EU treaty. If the EU has failed to act more decisively in recent years, it has not been for lack of ideas, but of the political will to overcome the high institutional hurdles to their implementation.

The key problem is that all major EU reforms require a unanimous member state consensus. Therefore, the EU tends to be only as fast as its slowest member – and some of the leaders who would prefer a less integrated and more intergovernmental union were delighted by the US election result. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán publicly welcomed Trump’s “beautiful victory”. Slovakia’s Robert Fico previously expressed his support to Trump. Italy’s Giorgia Meloni has good relations with American far-right activists, having appeared twice at the CPAC conference.

These politicians are likely to feel emboldened and might seek to emulate Trump or deal with him bilaterally. On Ukraine, Orbán declared that “if there will be a pro-peace president in America […] Europe cannot remain pro-war”. Fico described Trump’s victory as a “defeat for liberal and progressive ideas” and a sign that “the media always tend to lie”. Meloni has sought to position herself as the “natural interlocutor” with the US and has praised the “vision” of Trump ally Elon Musk. In sum, the US election result is likely to widen rather than narrow the European Council divisions on foreign and defence policy and on democratic values, and quite possibly also in other policy areas.

The only scenario in which a Trump victory could lead to a new reform dynamic in the EU would be if a majority of member states decided to sideline such voices and systematically circumvent the veto rights of Trump allies in the Council. This would be possible with more differentiated integration, in which a group of member states advance reforms only among themselves. But this route poses challenges.

In constitutional terms, the instrument of “enhanced cooperation” provided for in the EU treaty has its limits when it comes to institutional and financial affairs. For key reforms like common bonds, bypassing vetoes would only be possible through complicated legal constructs or “supplementary treaties” outside the EU framework.

In political terms, differentiation is unpopular with supranational EU institutions, like the European Parliament, as it weakens legal unity. A single comprehensive “core Europe” agreement would therefore be preferable to an incoherent system of intergovernmental coalitions of the willing. But it would also raise questions about which states belong to the inner circle and which policies would be pursued within the new framework versus the EU-27. These questions would generate conflict among the member states. The risk of being excluded from the core could motivate some recalcitrant governments to make concessions, but it could also lead them to torpedo the initiative. If Eurosceptic governments end up outweighing the supranationalist core, this might even accelerate disintegration tendencies. This thorniness is one of the reasons why the more influential member states, like Germany and France, have shied away from such an approach in the ongoing reform debates and are focused on compromises to maintain unity.

Finally, many EU member states – even those who do not actively embrace Trump’s policies – have publicly voiced their intent for continued cooperation with the new US administration. Beyond mere diplomatic politeness, this is also indicative of a desire to maintain transatlantic ties. There is a risk that European leaders will start to compete for Trump’s favour, which could set the stage for a divide-and-conquer strategy that would further increase European fragmentation.

Overall, it currently seems unlikely that Trump’s re-election will provide sufficient motivation for the “beneficial shock” to be put in motion. The threshold is high, and Germany and France are unlikely to pioneer a more assertive stance in the European Council, especially given their domestic weaknesses. On the contrary, leading member states will probably see the preservation of European unity as essential. The EU is therefore likely to continue to muddle through as it has for the past 15 years of polycrisis – unless the expected losses become so great that an inflection point is reached, and key member states decide to take the risk of confrontation after all.

Matti Pesu
Senior Research Fellow, Finnish Foreign Policy, Northern European Security and NATO

Northern Europe – encompassing the Baltic Sea region, the European Arctic, and the North Sea – has become a key arena for Euro-Atlantic security and NATO’s deterrence and defence activities. It is also a significant friction point between the Alliance and the Russian Federation, which NATO identifies as the most significant and direct threat to Euro-Atlantic security. 

Finland’s and Sweden’s NATO accessions in 2023 and 2024, respectively, have fundamentally reshaped the politico-military geography of Europe’s north. NATO is now enhancing its presence and posture in its new areas of responsibility. 

The United States plays a pivotal role in these efforts. In recent years, it has improved its capacity to provide military assistance and reinforcements to its allies in Northern Europe while simultaneously enhancing its ability to operate in this strategically vital region, close to Russia’s key military hubs – the Kola Peninsula and the St. Petersburg area. A crucial instrument in this regard has been a string of Defence Cooperation Agreements, which the US has signed with regional allies, some in the past and others more recently. 

Correspondingly, all Northern European NATO allies are eager to bind the United States to their security environment. US presence is perceived as an indispensable deterrent, and regional allies aim to see American defence matériel stockpiled in the area as well as US troops either permanently stationed or rotating through exercises. However, the effort to anchor the United States in the region is a challenging task, running counter to broader structural trends in international relations, particularly the growing focus on the Indo-Pacific as Washington’s primary theatre of operations. 

The coming return of Donald Trump to the presidency could further complicate Northern Europe’s objectives. Nonetheless, a reduced US footprint in the region is not inevitable. Several factors will shape US policy and posture in Northern Europe. 

Firstly, Northern Europe does not exist in a vacuum; its security is closely tied to the broader US grand strategy. Crucially, NATO will have significant agency in adapting to a Trump presidency and demonstrating its value to US interests and global primacy. 

Secondly, the nature of US policy will depend heavily on the composition of its administration. If the administration includes traditionally minded officials, the military aspects of the alliance relationship could be compartmentalised and insulated from the potentially tumultuous workings of the White House. 

Thirdly, the US engagement with Northern Europe will also be shaped by global events. While Washington may view regional security positively, crises elsewhere—most notably in East Asia—could divert American attention and resources, resulting in a lighter US presence in Europe. 

Fourthly, Northern European allies have considerable agency in managing transatlantic relations, even during a potentially turbulent Trump presidency. The following measures should be pursued regardless of the level of US commitment or who occupies the White House. They also serve as a hedge against potential US disengagement. 

1. Invest in National Defence
   Northern European countries, like other NATO allies, will need to significantly increase defence spending to meet the requirements of NATO’s regional plans. Higher defence expenditure is also a way to demonstrate NATO’s utility to a Trump administration likely to heavily prioritise burden-sharing.
2. Intensify Regional Cooperation
   Northern European states should deepen their existing military collaborations, which serve as critical enablers of NATO’s collective defence in the region.
3. Bind Major European Allies to the Region
   The Nordic-Baltic countries should work to strengthen the UK’s role in Northern European defence. Additionally, building stronger security ties with France and Germany would be highly desirable.
4. Engage the United States
   Northern European allies must actively cultivate their influence in Washington at all levels of government, engaging both parties. While many US allies worldwide will seek to bilateralise their relationships with Washington, Northern European states should strive to coordinate their efforts as much as possible, recognising their shared interest in keeping the US engaged in their region.

Trump’s second presidency will almost certainly not be an easy ride for NATO or Northern Europe. Serious concerns persist in Europe regarding the credibility of the American commitment, and a strained transatlantic relationship could

Sinikukka Saari
Leading Researcher, Finnish Foreign Policy, Northern European Security and NATO

Throughout Joe Biden’s presidency, American diplomats have iterated over and over that peace negotiations will only start when Ukrainians themselves are ready. This principle – combined with insufficient military aid to Ukraine and with reservations on which Russian targets Ukraine can strike with American missiles – has proven out to be a dangerous combination. In effect, this has led to a situation in which Ukraine’s position on the battlefield is gradually but persistently weakening. This also means that that Ukraine’s position at a negotiation table is constantly weakening – and that the table itself is drifting further away.

Against this background, some Ukrainians have even expressed satisfaction over Trump’s re-election. The argument goes that at least now Biden’s deadly pattern will be broken, and while there are considerable risks with the shift there might be some opportunities, too. It is hoped that Trump’s tough deal-making could help to push Russia towards negotiations, and perhaps into making some concessions.  

With his back against the wall, this is how Zelensky is also trying to frame it in his recent comments. A day after Trump’s re-election, Zelensky praised Trump’s alleged ‘Peace through Strength’ approach to world politics. This was a reference to President Ronald Reagan’s 1980s slogan implying that investment in military capabilities will eventually reflect positively on international peace and stability.

However, in reality Trump’s approach to Ukraine – or international security overall –   does not resemble Ronald Reagan’s well-known slogan. Instead, Trump’s slogan could rather be ‘Peace through the Deal’. This means that Trump aims to pay as little as possible for peace in Ukraine – and still get everything he has set to achieve.

One instrument that Team Trump is likely to use when pursuing ’peace through the deal’ is to make European states pay the bill of supporting and rebuilding Ukraine. Another tool is to play with his unpredictability and fury. For instance, Trump has claimed that during his first presidential term he told Putin that the US will “strike right in the center of damn Moscow” if Russia tries to invade Ukraine.

Trump’s supporters sometimes describe his foreign policy in a manner that sounds like he is a true strategic genius who can achieve long-term strategic wins virtually for free. While Trump is indeed unpredictable, he is also short-sighted and impatient, and he often lacks understanding of world politics and long-term consequences of his impulsive actions. This may lead to significant strategic mistakes that are difficult to repair afterwards and might have drastic consequences for European security.

Unfortunately, Putin also knows this and, no doubt, attempts to leverage Trump’s shortcomings. It is likely that Russia will seemingly welcome Trump’s initiatives on Ukraine, yet try to manipulate these processes to Russia’s advantage. In particular, if Trump withdraws the US support to Ukraine hastily, it is difficult to see why Russia would need to compromise on any of its key goals or take negotiations seriously.

European actors are in a key position in reducing the risks of Trump’s Ukraine policies. The EU member states need to base their policies on sober and realistic analysis of Trump and his short-sighted transactionalism in international relations. The risks and potential randomness of his decisions should not be explained away but neither should European states waste any potential opportunities by hysterical moral panic and condemnation of everything Trump says or does.

European leaders should anticipate what is coming and prepare the ground for taking on much bigger financial burden and political responsibility of Ukraine’s security and future reconstruction. One needs to acknowledge that for the president-elect of the United States, the fate of Ukraine, Russia’s accountability for the crimes it has committed or the norms on which the future European security order is based, are not existential – or perhaps even essential – issues. However, for the EU and European states they are fundamentally important, existential issues.  This is why European leaders should anticipate and accept that transatlantic ‘burden sharing’ on Ukraine is most likely turning towards ‘burden shifting’ towards Europe.  By taking more responsibility and financial burden on its shoulders, European actors would be much better positioned to influence Trump’s Ukraine policies and reduce the risks involved with it.

Antto Vihma
Research Professor, The Center on Climate Politics and Security

Marco Siddi
Leading Researcher, The European Union and Strategic Competition

“This very expensive GLOBAL WARMING bullshit has got to stop.”  -Donald J. Trump, Twitter, 2 January 2014

The president-elect Donald Trump seems unpredictable on many foreign policy issues, due to his transactionalism, personnel choices, and fondness for “deal-making”. However, Trump’s climate change agenda is well-known. The US president-elect is a climate denialist who has repeatedly called climate change a “hoax”, and efforts to boost green energy a “scam”.

In domestic politics, Trump’s climate agenda is deregulation. He is likely to move quickly and vigorously to dismantle existing climate policies in the US. This will impact US greenhouse gas emissions and the scale and speed of US decarbonization. According to a much-cited Carbon Brief analysis, Trump’s second term will result in an extra 4 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent by 2030, compared with Biden’s climate policies. The current US share of global emissions is 11 percent, making the US an important but not predominant player. 

In his first term, Trump abolished over 100 environmental regulations. Given the Republican trifecta – control of all three branches of federal government – Trump will be well-positioned to dismantle the legal and scientific foundations of climate and environmental policy, possibly in a more profound and lasting way than on his first term. Already, with its repeal of the Chevron Doctrine in 2024, the conservative-majority Supreme Court hollowed out the expertise of federal agencies, like the Environment Protection Agency. In his second term, Trump would be poised to continue this and reduce their administrative capacity. Furthermore, his supporters have proposed to abolish the Inflation Reduction Act and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which would cut back the expansion of domestic low-carbon energy production.

Internationally, Trump is likely to quickly announce the US exit from the Paris Agreement. Similarly to the domestic agenda, some of his supporters would like to see a more irreversible change: an exit from the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. This would mean a complete break from UN efforts on climate change. Legal experts are unclear on the process of leaving the treaty – whether it can or can’t be done with Presidential powers.

Trump’s policies will, in all cases, present a setback to global climate politics. His administration will not commit to climate financing to developing countries – one of the main agenda items of the ongoing UN negotiations in Baku (COP-29). In all likelihood, the US will not submit a new pledge to further reduce greenhouse gas emissions after 2030; according to the timetable set by the Paris agreement, this pledge should be made in 2025. This may have adverse effects on other countries’ submissions. However, the scale of the impact of US absence on other countries is impossible to predict.

The US withdrawal will also signal the end to the US-China bilateral climate diplomacy, a key enabler of the Paris Agreement in 2015. Furthermore, the Trump administration would likely have the US take a back seat to much of the other global activity to counteract climate change, including defunding and/or disrupting international bodies, for example, forcing the International Energy Agency (IEA) to remove net zero scenarios in its modelling.

Trump’s policies will deprive the EU of important US support in advocating ambitious climate action. This will embolden opponents of climate policy within the EU, who will likely highlight economic costs, industrial competitiveness, and argue for watering down climate action. Trump will feed the ongoing “greenlash” in the Union, especially opposition to the European Green Deal. This opposition comes not only from right-wing populists but increasingly from centre-right parties, as shown by the recent debate on the EU Nature Restoration Law. Furthermore, it will be more difficult for the EU to apply the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) in its definitive regime, from 2026, without incurring US retaliation.

All in all, Trump’s aggressive “America first” policies will be challenging for the European aspirations of carbon border adjustment, and rapid green transition in general. How will the EU respond to this assertiveness? Will the narrower security agenda, the Ukraine war in particular, take up the political space and momentum from climate and green transition?

Hiski Haukkala
Director

The return of Trump seems to augur yet another ‘Hour of Europe’. For good or for ill, Trump’s victory represents a breakpoint, yet another punctuated equilibrium. For his supporters, this is exactly what the doctor ordered, and that is why they voted for him in droves. For those yearning for some badly needed predictability and stability, the news is bad: As the collection of these snapshots testifies, the second season of Trump’s presidency promises more turbulence and uncertainty at a time when the world is already out of kilter. The EU with its rules-based stability-driven approach looks particularly exposed and vulnerable in the world where we are now entering.

Since 1991, when Luxembourg’s foreign minister Jacques Poos coined the term, we have seen many renditions of the Hour of Europe. The plot line is the usual cliffhanger, in which an external shock jolts the Europeans to scramble and rise to the occasion through heroic feats of ad hoc political leadership and at times all-night summitry where they snatch victory out of the jaws of the impending peril by making an improvised leap of faith towards further integration and/or adopt a common position concerning the issue(s) at stake.

To be fair, this is how the EU operates, and even progresses. The process is not always pretty, optimal, or thoroughly thought through, but it does deliver the goods, and allows even the most cynical of analysts to channel their inner Galileo Galilei and declare “Yet it moves”.

Yet the feeling is that, despite several professions to the contrary, the Hour of Europe has never truly materialized. The adopted solutions have often fallen short by solving some problems but also creating new ones and generating a great deal of internal friction in the process. Externally, the EU has still to come of age as an international and/or security actor worthy of a name.

This age of haphazard, improvised and piecemeal approaches needs to end. For Europeans the hour is getting very late while the stakes are growing unacceptably high. With a rapidly deteriorating security landscape, continued overreliance on the US for their security, a lagging economy, and increasing internal frictions and contradictions, the traditional approach of muddling through risks turning into one of muddling down.

But if the return of Trump is the latest shock to the system, where could the solution come from? Once again, it seems that it is the almost hyperactive French President Emmanuel Macron who is the first to rise to the occasion. His collection of flashy sound bites received a fresh addition last week at the European Political Community Summit in Budapest where he declared that in the world of carnivores, the currently herbivore Europe must become at least an omnivore to avoid becoming a mere stage which others trample upon.

The notion of an all-devouring Europe is funny, but the matter we are discussing is not. At stake is the very security, welfare and standing of the EU. This is already amply reflected in the somber tone of current commentary and analysis. The challenge that awaits the Europeans is to move from words to action, from the correct analysis to a set of concrete choices and commitments that will ensure that they can, in fact, finally seize the moment.

The biggest challenge is the perennial one of leadership. Macron excels at coming up with catchy phrases and grand ideas, but he has been much less successful in executing actual leadership by following his ideas through with sustained diplomacy and coalition building within the EU. The hasty impromptu summits he has repeatedly convened in Paris have generated more noise than actual substance or results. Often, the net sum of his actions has been growing irritation in European capitals. He needs to do better this time. Unfortunately, he is not helped in the task by the fact that the other traditional engine of European integration, Germany, is mired in its own internal problems.

It seems that more summits are indeed once again in the offing. Interestingly, it is Poland and its Prime Minister Donald Tusk that are now entering the fray with his voiced intention to organize summits with the French, UK and Nordic-Baltic leaders as well as the NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte. This is a welcome development. But at the same time, it is important to note that while minilateralism within the EU might get the ball rolling, it will not in itself suffice: we need agreement throughout the EU about the common direction. This will be a very tall order indeed. Also, the fact that Berlin is missing from Tusk’s list of important European capitals is indicative of frictions between the two countries that do not augur well for the EU.

A particular challenge for Europeans is that Trump positively detests the EU. But the fact that the Commission President Ursula von der Leyen got in an early phone call with Trump is a sign that the importance of the EU is at least acknowledged on his side. It is up to the Europeans to prove they are worthy to be taken seriously by Trump and his administration also going forward.

For Finland, the stakes are very high indeed. It will find it much more difficult to fare well or feel fully secure in a world where the transatlantic ties fray or Europe misses yet another occasion to rise to the challenge. The good news for Europe is that a great deal is still in our own hands. It has the correct analysis, economic power and the necessary institutions in place. Time is not on our side anymore, however, but we’ve not ran out of it yet, either. So, it is beyond high time to ask: Will the real Hour of Europe finally rise up?