The possible return of Donald Trump to the White House represents an existential threat to European security that can only be resolved if Britain becomes a clear defence partner with the rest of Europe, one of Emmanuel Macron’s close party allies has said.
Benjamin Haddad, a former head of the Atlantic Council Europe programme and one of those closest to French foreign policy thinking, has long argued that fundamental changes in US politics symbolised by Trump’s popularity require European defence to become more autonomous from the US.
The member of the French parliament’s European committee said in an interview: “2024 is existential for Europe. If we end up in a situation where America stops helping Ukraine, which is a likely scenario, we have two choices. Either we say we do not have the means to help Ukraine any more and we go to a negotiation that is more favourable to Putin and look the other way, and as a result we encourage further aggression down the road not only in Ukraine but elsewhere. Or we put in motion the means to help Ukraine to be able to defend itself without the US, and that is what Macron advocated recently.”
Haddad was in London in part to discuss what role the UK could play in the development of a stronger European defence arm. His visit has been given added urgency due to the open threats by Trump to Nato’s future, as well as the impasse in the US Congress on a Ukraine aid package
The author in 2019 of Paradise Lost, a book examining the implications of Trump’s rise for Europe, said: “In 2016 when Trump was elected many Europeans and Americans wanted to think this was an accident of history or a consequence of Russian interference in the media, but not that it was the harbinger of things to come and deeper trends.
“The polls are currently much more favourable to Trump than in 2016 and obviously we do not know what he will do in office, but Trump does not have to formally leave Nato to represent a challenge to the credibility of the alliance.
“The uncertainty already is a strategic challenge for Europe especially when it comes to Ukraine. I fear it is much harder for Congress to come to a compromise on a package of aid in an election year. We have to read the writing on the wall. There is in the US a long-term pivot to south-east Asia, and to unilateralism.
“The Americans have been warning us for a long time. Robert Gates, the US defence secretary under Barack Obama, warned that the next generation of Americans will not be willing to pay for European’s security.”
Haddad said the best way to keep the transatlantic alliance strong was for European defence to become stronger, arguing that those who say this might repel the US were trapped in an obsolete way of thinking. “It is extraordinarily counterproductive to think you can keep Americans anchored in Europe by showcasing our weakness, divisions and inability to act. That is what will drive them away.”
He said the convergence of thinking across Europe about the scale of the Russian threat had already transformed the size of European defence budgets, but Europe now needed to put weapons production on a war footing, adopt Estonia’s plan for defence bonds to build a stronger common European defence procurement capacity that gives industry certainty, and also start to raid Russian central bank assets for Ukraine’s reconstruction. He also said that if voters were to accept higher defence spending, they would expect more of that spending to boost jobs in Europe rather than in the US or South Korea.
He was frank that for a European defence arm to be strong, the UK had to be involved. “There is no credible thinking about long-term European sovereignty on defence without bringing the UK in a robust way. After Brexit we had a missed opportunity when Michel Barnier, the Brexit negotiator, proposed a security and defence treaty with the EU and the offer was not taken up. I hope it is something we can revamp in the context of Ukraine and the American elections.”
He said Europe had to contemplate the implications of losing the American nuclear umbrella. “In France the subject of nuclear sharing has been very taboo, and France is not part of the Nato nuclear planning group, but President Macron has said multiple times now our vital interests have a European dimension, so he has proposed a conversation with Europe on this.
“We are not talking about the idea of sharing decisions, but the idea of how the French and British nuclear deterrent can be useful for the security of Europe.”
He praised the British foreign secretary, David Cameron, for being willing to challenge the Republican unilateralists in the US.
But he said it was also necessary to “listen very seriously” to the caustic responses to Lord Cameron’s arguments from Republicans. “We need to ask ourselves if we want to rely on the voters of Montana, Wisconsin and Michigan to keep Europe safe. Basically, Europe’s security would be flipping a coin every four years.”
