Image by Christian Lue.

The “Make America Great Again” project is no longer confined to U.S. domestic politics; it is expanding into Europe—not through direct military intervention, but via cultural, political, and economic penetration. Washington is determined to reconstruct Europe’s prevailing liberal order—not by collision, but by the soft re-engineering of policies and political currents—so that the continent becomes part of US’s project rather than an equal partner.

Europe today faces a cluster of crises: the rise (and normalization) of far-right parties; a gnawing decline of trust in Brussels-based institutions among segments of the electorate; and structural weaknesses in coordinating foreign, energy, and security policies among member states. These very conditions have created a unique opening for the Trump project to inject nationalist and anti-liberal ideas into the heart of European politics. What is taking shape is a vision in which Europe is redefined not as a partner, but as subordinate to Washington’s preferences.

Elimination, Conversion, Submission: Three gears of influence

Elimination means sidelining moderate currents by tilting the political marketplace toward hard-right and anti-liberal actors. The 2024 European Parliament election marked a structural inflection: hard-right forces gained unprecedented leverage after group reorganization, with the new 720-seat chamber reflecting a rebalanced right bloc in which the Patriots for Europe emerged as a major pole and the Europe of Sovereign Nations (ESN) group crystallized around Germany’s AfD.

This is not abstract Brussels numerology—it registers in capitals. Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy formed Italy’s government in 2022;

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