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Whoever wins the election, the vote for the next president of the United States has always had a profound impact on Europe, both in Brussels and in the member states. This time, the resounding victory of Donald Trump, who will serve a second term at the White House, already created a lot of speculation about the response that the European Union as a whole should have.

There is no doubt that the Trump administration will take economic initiatives that could affect the political and social stability of the European Union. The Republican president already signaled his intention to propose a 10% universal tariff on all US imports, a decision that could significantly disrupt European growth and heavily hit key trade-dependent sectors such as autos and chemicals. In 2023, the European Union exported €502.3 billion in goods to the United States, led by machinery and vehicles (€207.6 billion), chemicals (€137.4 billion), and other manufactured goods (€103.7 billion). All together, these sectors comprise nearly 90% of the EU’s transatlantic exports: any rise in tariffs would obviously create deep concern in the European member countries. Add to this picture the ongoing situation in Germany, where the economy suffers from a serious slump in recent months and does not look on track to a fast recovery in the near future. The current political crisis in the German government, which could end in early elections as soon as January or March, looms a darker shadow on Berlin’s perspective against the incoming Trump administration. What is striking is the fact that German industry still has not fully recovered from the shocks of the COVID-19 pandemic, which happened in the last months of the first term spent by Donald Trump at the White House. Four years later, the locomotive of the European economy finds itself in a troubled situation, as after the pandemic came Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, which led Germany and other Western countries to cut themselves off from Russian gas and oil due to the sanctions system against the Kremlin. More recently, the German automotive sector felt the burden of competition from China, including the development of electric vehicles, forcing some of the main carmakers on the global stage (from Audi to Volkswagen and BMW) to lower production and lay off workers. Fear of the “Trump effect” can radiate from Germany to other exporting countries in the European Union, such as Italy, France, and the Netherlands. In the context of a flimsy economic revival in the EU, all the member states should brace for a potential commercial war with the United States and even for one between the US and China.

On the social side, there is also the issue of populist, right-wing rhetoric and the connection that the “America First” policies of the Trump administration could create with EU political parties. Right-wing politicians in Europe already used Trump’s hardline stance on migration as a rhetorical tool to push their own anti-immigration policies, citing the US president’s approach as evidence that even major world powers recognized the dangers of uncontrolled migration. European leaders such as the Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban are a clear example of such a dynamic, but other far-right politicians had connected their figures with Trump and his message.

Written by: Francesco Marino