Destructive creation: How Russia and Trump revived the European Union

A separate issue is Europe’s far right, with which Trump and his team have long sought to build ties. Elon Musk marked the start of his brief but high-profile campaign in support of Germany’s far-right party, the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), with a post reading “Only the AfD can save Germany.” At the time an ally of Trump and one of the largest donors to his presidential campaign, Musk not only publicly backed the AfD but also took part in one of its rallies.

The German government accused him of trying to influence the election, and Friedrich Merz, then the leader of the conservative opposition, said in February 2025 that Musk’s interference would not go unanswered. Germany did not respond directly, but in late 2025 the social network X was fined 125 million euros in the EU for violating European transparency requirements. Trump responded by again saying that Europe was moving in the wrong direction and should be careful.

Similar ideas appeared in the new U.S. National Security Strategy. According to the document, Europe suppresses political opposition, restricts freedom of speech, and is moving toward “civilizational erasure” due to high immigration and low birthrates.

But the document also notes a positive trend: the growing influence of so-called “patriotic parties.” According to the strategy’s authors, the United States should help them resist what Washington characterizes as Europe’s false course from within. An expanded version of the strategy (the existence of which the White House denies), reportedly contained even more radical statements.

“In the first drafts, it said the United States should do everything possible to persuade Poland and Italy that they do not need to be in the European Union, that they should carry out some kind of Polexit, Italexit, Hunexit. It said they should continue working to effectively divide society by explaining how harmful an actor the European Union is,” commented Petar Tanev, an expert on EU policy.