Europe’s far right suddenly has a Trump problem

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A year ago, far-right leaders in Europe celebrated Donald Trump’s return to the White House in the expectation that his America First credo would draw more voters toward their nationalist policies aimed at increasing border controls and combatting European Union diktats.

Their long-standing calls for enhanced national sovereignty to counter EU-driven rule-making were championed by the U.S. President and Vice-President JD Vance, who denounced EU regulations that targeted American tech companies and immigration policies that they claimed threatened the continent’s cultural identity.

The unofficial alliance between the European far right and the White House was laid out in December with the release of the Trump administration’s National Security Strategy, which made supporting nationalist parties on the continent a key element of U.S. foreign policy.

“American diplomacy should continue to stand up for genuine democracy, freedom of expression, and unapologetic celebrations of European nations’ individual character and history,” the NSS said, calling the rise of “patriotic” parties a “cause for great optimism.”

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Only weeks later, the leaders of these same parties are running away from Mr. Trump faster than you can say “civilizational erasure,” which is what the NSS posited Europe would face unless it abandoned its open-migration policies and “regulatory suffocation.”

The U.S. President’s military operation in Venezuela to seize Nicolás Maduro, his threats to invade Greenland unless the Danish territory agreed to be acquired by the United States, followed by his ultimatum warning European countries to drop their support for Greenland’s sovereignty or face additional tariffs, are all seen as a betrayal of the national sovereignty ethos the MAGA movement preaches.

“Donald Trump has violated a fundamental campaign promise – namely, not to interfere in other countries,” complained Alice Weidel, co-leader of the Alternative for Germany party that Mr. Vance tacitly backed in last year’s Bundestag elections, in which it made historic gains.

Other far-right politicians – from Marine Le Pen, head of France’s National Rally, and her sidekick Jordan Bardella, to Britain’s Reform UK leader Nigel Farage and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni – have felt similarly compelled to denounce Mr. Trump’s foreign interventionism and violations of national sovereignty as their own voters increasingly come to see the United States as a bigger threat to global peace and security than Russia or China.

Whether Mr. Trump’s recent actions put a halt to the momentum of Europe’s far-right parties remains to be seen, however. Much will depend on how successfully leaders like Ms. Le Pen, Mr. Bardella and Ms. Weidel are able to channel their euroskepticism without appearing to be doing Mr. Trump’s bidding.

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“[E]ven if the events of January 2026 were to add to Trump’s unpopularity across Europe, his warmongering could still help his ideological allies,” Pawel Zerka, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, wrote last week. “A successful culture war does not require Trump sycophancy. And, whatever the big global events of the moment, American and European MAGA are closing ranks at the operational level.”

Indeed, the Trump administration is working to increase the influence of European far-right parties with the goal of reversing EU climate and technology regulations that inhibit U.S. businesses on the continent. The culture-war lingo is a political tactic; the ultimate goal involves impeding the EU’s ability to regulate American companies.

“I know that the National Security Strategy, the language around Europe and around civilizational erasure, drew a lot of attention in Europe,” U.S. Under Secretary of State for Economic Affairs, Jacob Helberg, said last month. “What I’d like to highlight is that the language is a warning. It is not an insult. …There is a degree of alarm in Washington about the need for serious reforms in order to jolt the European economy back to life. We think it’s possible with the right reforms.”

Hence, helping to elect more far-right legislators across Europe will remain a top Trump administration priority, especially in France, which it sees as the linchpin of its strategy to undermine the EU. U.S. Ambassador Charles Kushner, the father of Mr. Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, has made no secret of where the Trump administration’s sympathies lie.

Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon told France’s public broadcaster last month that a National Rally victory in next year’s presidential election would constitute the “final element that will really kill the European Union” after Britain’s withdrawal from the EU and Mr. Trump’s election.

Ms. Le Pen, who was convicted last year of embezzling European Parliament funds, is appealing the ruling that banned her from seeking public office for five years. If she loses on appeal, Mr. Bardella is expected to take her place as the National Rally’s 2027 presidential candidate.

Either way, Mr. Trump – and the future of the EU – will loom large in the French vote.