There is a good chance that Donald Trump will return to the US presidency in 2025. That would endanger European interests, but Europe is not investing in mitigating the risks. In less than a year, the next US president will be inaugurated. Donald Trump, who has just thumped his Republican rivals in the Iowa caucuses, seems almost certain to be the Republican candidate. The majority of recent opinion polls show him leading Joe Biden, or the two candidates level. Most European leaders hope that Biden will be re-elected, but as military leaders, politicians and business gurus have said for decades, “Hope is not a strategy”. In 2016, most Europeans did not take Trump’s prospects of winning seriously enough. In 2024, they have no excuse for repeating their error.
Author: Ian Bond, deputy director, Centre for European Reform.
This text has originally been published on the Centre for European Reform website.
