A brand new report finds that whereas European belonging stays sturdy, US President Trump’s tradition warfare is making an attempt to interrupt it.
Revealed On 23 Sep 2025
United States President Donald Trump’s Make America Nice Once more (MAGA) drive is reverberating in Europe by way of a tradition warfare that’s being supported by political allies, a brand new report has discovered.
The European Council on International Relations (ECFR) and the European Cultural Basis (ECF) launched a report on Tuesday on European sentiment, which discovered that Trump was pushing allies in European politics.
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Nevertheless, the sense of belonging within the European Union stays sturdy. “In a number of nations, public and political appreciation for the EU is rising — not essentially out of idealism, however from a practical perception that collective motion issues in a risky world,” the report discovered.
“The early months of Trump’s presidency possible turbocharged this. They appear to have clarified the very values, corresponding to rule of legislation and safety of basic rights, that many voters need Europe to embody,” it added.
The report explains that as EU leaders come collectively to solidify a shared identification, Trump is making an attempt to undermine that by way of a tradition warfare on the definition of the collective identification.
“These are the high-drama ideological battles over migration, local weather, ‘wokeism’ and free speech. That is the wrestle over which debates dominate European politics and the which means of ‘Western values’,” the report outlined.
Writer of the report and ECFR senior coverage fellow, Pawel Zerka, stated Trump’s tradition warfare on Europe was most evident by way of exclusions from talks on the way forward for Ukraine throughout the warfare with Russia and ongoing commerce negotiations.
“Europe has unbelievable strengths that ought to permit it to thrive reasonably than undergo in a world order whose destabilisation has been accelerated by the US president. And the tradition warfare with Trump’s America affords it a chance to show it,” Zerka stated.
Nevertheless, the report defined that the explanation why Trump can exploit these ideological battles is that European leaders have “actual or imagined dependencies on the US”.
The examine portrayed the EU as the primary character, Truman Burbank, of the movie The Truman Present, which tells the story of a person who’s unaware that his life is being filmed and televised reside.
It argued that, like Burbank, the bloc spends extra of its time responding to crises orchestrated by Trump than setting its personal agenda.
Andre Wilkens, director of the European Cultural Basis, stated leaders wanted to consider the cultural attachment to Europe.
“Solely then will leaders of political events have the ability to body their electoral methods in ways in which reply to individuals’s real attachment to Europe – thus limiting the attraction of Trump’s ideological allies of their nations,” Wilkens stated.
