The European bloc, as faithful to the United States as it has been since April 1949, when the Western and Christian world created NATO with the aim of confronting the Cold War, is beginning to fall apart. And it is not only because of the suicidal war adventure in Ukraine, but also because of the insulting and contradictory attitudes of the supreme leader, Donald Trump, who on Monday reached the point of saying that the power “does not need anyone’s help, useless, we never need them”, all in capital letters, as dictated by its grammatical mediocrity. And that on Friday he lashed out as “cowards” – in capital letters too – all the partners of the alliance that at the time helped him destroy Iraq and Libya.
Since the invasion of Iran, one after one, most Europeans began to go crazy. There are fewer and fewer who bow, that is, there are more and more disobedients, who are no longer just the greatest but those who have preserved some dignity. Among those who put up with any manipulation are the Secretary General of NATO, Mark Rutte, and the person in charge of foreign relations of the EU, Kaja Kallas, repeatedly beaten by Trump. Emmanuel Macron, on the other hand, appealed to a remnant of dignity when he publicly rebuked the American ambassador Charles Chushner, who, fueled by imperial arrogance, said that the French government “was taken over by left-wing extremism.”
In one way or another, the Rutte/Kallas or Macron type responses are outlining a new scenario, in which what matters are the signals emanated, which without being direct, mark the detour of a path. From there, it will be difficult for the United States to return once in the distant 2028, the bully and arrogant spirit of the Republican leader who commands from the White House is over. Disobedience manifests itself in different ways. From the refusal to participate in the adventure in which Israel (Beniamin Netanyahu) embarked and bogged down Trump in Iran, to the apparently most naive advance of electoral dates or the signing of agreements on security and defense with countries that do not yet belong to European structures.
The case of Denmark perhaps best shows how arrogance turned against Trump. Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, who is not her friend, brought forward the general election. Instead of October, the Danes will vote this Tuesday the 24th. She arranged it because she has the power to do so, but above all because the polls are rewarding her. In December he lost by 17 points and today he wins by 5. That, thanks to his defense of sovereignty, by confronting Trump when the American announced that he wanted to buy or militarily take over the strategic Greenland, an autonomous territory of Denmark. On Friday, Frederiksen dealt the final blow by revealing that between January and February he took defensive measures on the island, among which he arranged the shipment of plasma and medicines.
Frederiksen, prime minister since 2019, took the opportunity to sneak into this campaign an old project that big capital sympathetic to Trump managed to stop until now. This is a mega-fortune tax: a 5% levy on assets over $2.7 million. It would reach around 22,000 people and would raise $925 million a year, which would be used to finance an educational reform that would combat inequality. In short, with his arrogant military threat, Trump achieved what the prime minister could not in seven years. Beyond the fiscal debate, Frederiksen’s move points to a dynamic that is beginning to be seen in international politics: confronting the empire, as Denmark is showing, produces good dividends.
On Friday, perhaps the day on which Trump was most pathetically unrestrained, Switzerland, historically neutral, said that in order to distance itself from the invasion of Iran it is suspending all exports of arms and ammunition destined for the United States and Israel. Military flights directly related to the war will also be prohibited from operating at airports or flying over Swiss skies. The measure exceeds the symbolic. Last year the United States was the second largest importer of Swiss weapons (10% of shipments). Sales included aerial vehicles, ammunition and handguns.
The previous days were not better for Trump, and all the episodes produced on European soil are directly related to his person, to his style. Iceland, which until now refused to be part of the EU, will hold a referendum on the issue. Faced with the gradual withdrawal of the United States from Europe, it is looking for support to protect itself in the event of any emergency. For this reason, on Wednesday he gained time and signed an association agreement in security and defense. And together with the Netherlands, it appeared at the International Court of Justice to join South Africa and nine other American and European countries in the genocide case opened against Netanyahu. In the midst of the invasion of Iran, it is a very explicit way to judge Trump, the invading partner.
All of this occurs amid signs of decomposition on the domestic front. With the challenge of a critical midterm election (November 3) for which things are looking bad, and with the ship in charge of a dangerous individual – the psychopath, the Congressional Democrats call him – who is supported by a troupe that, to justify the hunger siege placed on Cuba, repeats that the small island constitutes an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to the empire. Among the crusaders is in the front row the head of the Pentagon, Pete Hegseth, an evangelical preacher who, in order to explain to some stupefied legislators the insane request for 200 billion dollars with which to continue the American-Israeli “tour” in Iran, assured them that “killing those bad guys costs a lot of money” (sic).
