Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for freeYour guide to what the 2024 US election means for Washington and the worldWhat is the endgame of Donald Trump\u2019s foreign policy? That question has not been asked enough since US vice-president JD Vance\u2019s shocker of a speech in Munich.It is clear that Trump and his cronies want to bury the rules-based international order and restore the great power competition that preceded it. They seem to prefer a world divided into spheres of influence under a handful of large states run by strongmen. But even if (indeed especially if) that is their goal, why would they want to push Europe into a Russian sphere of influence? For this is the obvious consequence of withdrawing US protection or of helping Europe\u2019s Maga equivalents to power. An abandoned Europe would also see less reason to rally behind an aggressive American approach to China. If Trump\u2019s view of the world is redolent of how mobsters might divide up a city into gangland territories, how does it make sense to vacate the most lucrative and powerful territory there is outside of your home turf? Bullies often project, so take what they say about others as an indicator of what they think about themselves. That has long been true for Trump, and goes for Vance\u2019s speech as well. His most shocking line \u2014 \u201cthe threat that I worry the most about\u201d is not Russia or China but \u201cthe threat from within\u201d Europe \u2014 is best read as identifying the strongest adversary not of Europe, but of the Trump regime\u2019s goals. Russia and China, after all, may be geopolitical powers the US needs to come to an understanding with. But they pose no challenge, let alone an alternative model, to the Maga world Trump and Vance are busy building, especially inside the US itself. In contrast, the EU and Europe more broadly, if it can stay united, has the ability to put up resistance that matters to Maga America and its Big Tech oligarchy.It\u2019s admittedly no match for the US militarily, nor even capable of securing its own defence without American help \u2014 yet. But even this is changing, as Elisabeth Braw recently pointed out with regard to the north European Joint Expeditionary Force\u2019s relative self-sufficiency in the Baltic Sea. Trump may find that taking responsibility for its own security makes Europe less rather than more pliable.Commercially, the EU is already a power to be reckoned with. It\u2019s an enormous market for Trump\u2019s tech bro executives. When the EU chooses to (it often does not), it can act autonomously around the world, pursue its interests vigorously and, in particular, regulate its home market as it sees fit. That matters for the tech industry more than most.Europeans reacted most viscerally to Vance\u2019s boosterism for the far right, but his namechecking of Elon Musk should give them as much pause. Does America\u2019s new leadership fight EU regulation in order to pave the far right\u2019s path to power, or does it root for the far right in order to promote governments willing to give Big Tech free rein? Like chickens and eggs, it\u2019s not a terribly useful question: both matter. But do not minimise the push to defang Europe\u2019s regulatory sovereignty for the benefit of US tech. It is the most consistent talking point among Trump\u2019s henchmen.Why does Europe matter so much to them? Partly, of course, because it\u2019s easier to make money if you can sell the same extractive services to European consumers as you have already inflicted on American ones. Politically, because it replicates the enormously powerful tools to influence voters that Trump\u2019s camp has built in the US.But it is also because the European insistence that tech developments must be done in ways that respect consumers and citizens encourages the development of alternatives. America\u2019s Big Tech often decries European regulation with the argument that the EU\u2019s heavy-handed rules kill innovation in Europe. But if that were true, what would they have to complain about? The lack of innovation in Europe would reduce competition against them.If, contrary to what they say, Europe\u2019s tech regulations are necessary (if not sufficient) conditions for alternative products and technologies to emerge, Big Tech\u2019s visceral opposition makes more sense. It is a sign that Europe is on the right track. It should plough on rather than be deflected.The EU and its member states should, in a perverse sense, be flattered. The insults and belittling aside, they have been designated the most serious adversary of Trump\u2019s Maga world, one that must be defanged first. Europe should embrace the paradox that Trump and his cronies hold the EU in greater esteem than Europeans themselves, and prove itself a worthy adversary.martin.sandbu@ft.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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