Marine Le Pen in April 2012, Wikimedia Commons
President Donald Trump’s once-comfortable alliance with Europe’s populist right is starting to crack as his threats, war rhetoric, and pressure on allies make him more liability than asset. What used to be a useful political brand for nationalist firebrands is now putting them in the awkward position to choose between their own countries and copying Trump.
The Washington Post's Steve Hendrix and Stefano Pitrelli reported Friday that Trump’s war with Iran and general trashing of NATO allies, has created a breaking point for European nationalist leaders who were once fans of his anti-establishment style, but are now refusing to defend his war and the diplomatic conflicts that have come with it.
Brexit champion Nigel Farage recently founded an anti-immigrant Reform UK party, and he was elated to have Trump back in office. That has changed in the past year, however.
“I happen to know him, but that’s by the by,” Farage said last week, the Post cited. Farage pivoted from Trump being "the beginning of a golden age" to simply knowing him while Britain is suffering under the weight of the U.S.'s war with Iran.
Farage desperately wanted to ride Trump's coattails back into favor, but that isn't likely as fuel costs make other prices soar.
"Farage is not alone," the report said. "Across Britain and Europe, nationalist leaders are retreating from Trump after having hailed his second term as something of a second coming for populists. Fifteen months in, the symbiosis between Trump’s MAGA and Europe’s nationalist parties has reached a potential breaking point."
From Britain to Italy, leaders are squirming as Trump continues his anti-Europe campaign, penalizing countries by enacting tariffs, threats to seize Greenland, and ultimately his bombing campaign against Iran. This week it deepened as Trump ended up in a war of words with peace-loving Pope Leo XIV, the first American pontiff, after the U.S. leader used genocide as a threat.
Even Germany's far-right Alternative for Germany party (AfD) thought Trump went too far. Tino Chrupalla, co-chair of the party wrote on social media, “The renewed destabilization of the Middle East is not in Germany’s interest and must be brought to an end.”
Iran wasn't the start, though. AfD leader Alice Weidel went from welcoming JD Vance to Germany for a meeting last year to trashing the administration over the military raid in Venezuela. She went so far as to say that Trump's threats to sieze Greenland “violated a fundamental campaign promise — namely, not to interfere in other countries.”
Marine Le Pen, who continues to champion France’s National Rally party, cautioned Trump’s “erratic” war in Iran could result in “catastrophic consequences” when it comes to fuel prices.
“It is becoming apparent that very little preparation was done,” La Pen told the French daily Le Parisien.
The Post said that leaders of the far-right parties across Europe hoped that the return of Trump would mean a boost for their own nationalism along with it.
Speaking to CNN in January, Ivan Krastev, a Bulgarian political scientist based in Vienna, said that Trump seems to be “a nationalist who does not understand nationalism, particularly the nationalism of others."