'Ultimate nightmare' Europe fears outcome of friendly fire from the US

Europe fears outcome of friendly fire from the US

- Julian Borger

Europe has been braced for the challenge posed by Donald Trump's return since the US presidential election in November but the threat to European stability has come earlier and appears far more serious than predicted.

Even before Trump returns to the Oval Office, he has revived his territorial aspirations for Greenland, making clear they were not some forgotten bad-taste joke from his first term, but rather unfinished business that he intended to resolve by whatever means necessary, even military.

Meanwhile Trump's financial backer and confidante, Elon Musk, the world's richest man, has been using his ownership of the X social media platform to aggressively further the cause of the far right in Europe, threatening the continent with the realisation of its ultimate nightmare, the return of fascism, this time abetted from Washington.

The stream-of-consciousness irredentism of Trump in the run-up to his second term has not been confined to Europe. He has mused that Canada should be a US state, that the US should wrest back ownership of the Panama canal, and that the Gulf of Mexico should be renamed the Gulf of America, and he has said his restoration would be accompanied by new tariffs on the US's neighbours.

However, it is in Europe where the fallout from Trump's territorial ambitions is felt most keenly. European capitals are in a dilemma over how to respond, torn between outrage over the blatant interference in favour of extremists, and anxiety over becoming a focus for Trump and Musk's personal grievances.