You experienced Donald Trump's first term as US president up close as German ambassador in Washington. Did you expect him to be re-elected?
I always refused to make any predictions. Given the small margins, anyone who thought they could predict the outcome was treading on very thin ice. What I didn’t expect was that the election victory would be so clear. That Trump would not only win the Electoral College, but also the popular vote, and that the Republicans would win the majority in the Senate and House of Representatives—I didn’t foresee that.
How do you interpret the result?
It’s the biggest rightward shift in American society since 1980. At the same time, one should be careful not to speak of a “landslide.” For example, the lead in the popular vote was very small.
Did the Trump Republicans win, or did the Democrats led by Kamala Harris lose?
The Democrats’ postmortem is still ongoing. Of course, there are many and very complicated reasons for Trump’s election victory. It’s certainly linked to the recent experience of inflation and the way the economy has developed over the past few years, as well being a vote against the agenda-setting by the college-educated elites in the big cities and their cultural codes.
At the core, however, is a fundamental shift within American society. It has been going on for much longer than the past four or eight years. Since 2008 at the latest, the globalization consensus in the United States has been eroding—the conviction prevalent in both parties at the time that globalization brings prosperity for all, that open borders and the free flow of goods, services, and people is beneficial, and that the US investment in alliances is an investment in global security and in America’s global role.
So, you’re saying that the global financial crisis of 2008 was the tipping point?
Yes, and Trump’s first election victory in 2016 reflected this for the first time: As the Republican candidate, Trump broke with Republican ideological traditions. Both parties subsequently converged on this point. President Joe Biden did not reverse many of the protectionist measures adopted by the first Trump administration and has similarly focused on economic nationalism. In doing so, Biden was able to build on the Keynesian traditions of his party. In this respect, we must regard Trump’s re-election as the closing of the circle.
And while there may have been a “reset” in US foreign policy under Biden as far as US alliances were concerned, this reversal will now be completed here as well, reflecting the end of the globalization consensus and the emergence of a new mainstream in American thinking.
What will these new foreign policy principles be?
We must assume that America will redefine its role in global interconnectivity and, in view of the changed geopolitical and geo-economic conditions, will focus it more on the benefits for America. In all likelihood, it will be much more mercantile. And that has consequences for us—for our security and for the way we position ourselves internationally with Europe.
Some nominations, such as that of Marco Rubio as secretary of state, could also be read as a reassuring signal: As a senator, Rubio played a key role in getting the law passed that a US president cannot simply decree a withdrawal from NATO. How do you interpret the emerging line-up?
The Rubio nomination is also likely to be linked to the fact that Trump’s daughter-in-law is eyeing his Senate seat and the governor of Florida has already indicated that he is considering her appointment.
What is striking about the nominations so far is that practically no one from the first Trump administration is among them, at least not at the top layer. What’s more, the White House of a re-elected president—and that’s what Trump II is—is always stronger, more power-conscious and more self-confident than it was in the first term. I therefore assume that decision-making will be concentrated in the White House and that the other ministries and agencies will only be as powerful as President Trump allows them to be. This means that the room for maneuver for the other members of government has decreased significantly compared to the first time.
So that would leave only the Senate to put the brakes on Trump?
That is hard to predict. The president's mandate is certainly much stronger than the first time around. And that will also become apparent in relation to the legislature. But voices are already coming out of the Senate that have shown the president a red card on certain appointments, for example on his attempt to make the controversial Matt Gaetz attorney general. That happened very, very quickly and is an indication that the Senate is very sure of its traditional power in the American political structure.
Another important appointment for Europe is that of National Security Advisor Mike Waltz. Contrary to many concerns about a “deal” that Trump could make with Russian President Vladimir Putin, his nomination isn’t necessarily one that the Kremlin welcomes. What do you expect in terms of the much-discussed Trump-Putin summit and an end to the war against Ukraine?
All we know is that Trump has publicly announced that he will end the war immediately. He has not made clear what the conditions for ending the war are but by giving the time frame “within 24 hours” he indicated that the end is the priority, not the form the end should take. And that at any rate is a signal that Putin will have understood.
Beyond the Ukraine policy, what should Germany and Europe prepare for?
The Biden administration saw the war in Ukraine in the context of America’s global challenges, particularly in terms of its power rivalry with China. Support for Ukraine was part of America’s global deterrence capability and particularly important with regard to the region that is now the eye of the cyclone for America: China and the Indo-Pacific.
The future administration will not do that. Trump has made it clear that the challenges on the European continent are Europe's business. He has said that it’s not America’s responsibility, it’s a regional conflict. And such a turnaround in American policy naturally has many consequences: for the Russian president's risk assessment and the way in which we have to think about our own defense capability, security, deterrence capability, and resilience.
What role will the policy on China play?
A very central one. If you can read anything into the nominations relevant to foreign policy, it is the clear, concentrated focus on China. And that also has consequences for us.
The expectation will certainly be that we should follow those steps or political decisions where if we don’t fall in line, the US has to expect that it would either hinder American power projection or result in competitive economic disadvantages. In this respect, the approach toward China will also be of central importance to the relationship with Europe.
Compared to the first Trump presidency, however, something has changed. Russia's war against Ukraine has clearly reminded us all that our security dependence on the United States is not an academic issue, but a very existential one. In this respect, the Russian president now has an instrument in his hands that can definitely shape other political or economic issues.
In your Manfred Wörner lecture at the Federal Academy for Security Policy (BAKS) in November 2024, you used the image of a “wrongly buttoned shirt” to describe German policy ...
By that I mean that our debates on security policy, prioritization, resource requirements, and distribution sometimes seem to me to be based on a geopolitical status quo that is currently being dismantled. Trump’s election has shown us that the Americans too have abandoned it for good. We have to adapt to this. If there is such a massive shift in American thinking about the benefits of alliances and the acceptability of the costs of investing in alliances, it means that we need to question existing assumptions.
This status quo, along with the certainty of the American promise of security, was our comfort zone. It’s history. The American consensus on the cost/benefit calculation of globalization and global responsibility has shifted massively—because the geopolitical framework has shifted massively. Trump’s election victories are an expression of this trend. It will continue, quite irrespective of who is US president today or in four years’ time. We as Europe need to rethink. We need to have a different discussion about investing in our security and resilience. This affects our entire society.
There was a lot of talk of “Trump-proofing” before the election, but is that even possible? Or to put it another way: What are the best steps that Germany and the EU can take now?
If we only link political efforts with the person of the president and conceive them as a response to his election, that won’t be enough. The pivotal point must be the question of what is in our, in Europe’s interest, regardless of who’s in the White House. That’s the first point.
The second point is that Trump-proofing always assumes that Trump’s transactionalism is completely rational. That’s often not the case. Consider that Trump threatened Canada and Mexico with 25 percent import tariffs at the end of November if they didn’t take the migration policy steps he demanded. Making such connections is characteristic of Trump’s transactionalism. But it’s very difficult to prepare for situations in which completely unrelated dossiers are linked and turned into conditions.
My point has always been: Let’s focus on investing in our security and resilience. At best, this is also an investment in the projection of transatlantic power. But it will of course also make us more immune and resilient in challenging situations in the transatlantic relationship.
In the first Trump term, it was often said that “America First” ultimately meant “America Alone.” Will that work?
“America Alone” was perhaps still possible during Trump's first term because one of the patterns of his modus operandi was to always bilateralize political disputes as it gave him a competitive advantage. The United States is still the most powerful country in the world. But we have seen geopolitical shifts over the past four years that are also changing the parameters for him. On many issues, bilateralization will no longer be possible.
For example?
The increasingly antagonistic relationship with China and the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East have given many states in the Global South a new weight. They have become swing states in terms of foreign policy.
We’re seeing these ad hoc connections in a geopolitical “à la carte-ism” that Trump will have to deal with. Biden responded to this situation by expanding partnerships, networks, and alliances. We don't know how Trump will adjust to this objective change. But he won’t be able to balance these power shifts with loud bravado alone. It’s an open question.
You have known the United States for a long time, and you also look at the country from a historian’s perspective. Where do you think the United States is heading in the longer term?
Biden did roll back “America First” in foreign policy—not so much in economic and trade policy. In retrospect, historians will say that these years were the exception to the new rule. When the next US president is elected in four years’ time, the political debate in the United States will have been dominated for 12 years by questions such as: Where are the security freeloaders? Where have we been taken advantage of? Where have US interests been served, or where have US interests been ignored because we have been too outward-looking? It won’t be possible to turn all that back.
At some point, this new consensus on “America first,” protectionism, economic nationalism, and possibly the greater mercantilization of security will be called into question again. But we are currently seeing that a broad social current wants to move away from a globalization consensus. Both parties have reacted to this. This convergence will continue for a long time to come.
The interview was conducted by the IP/IPQ editorial team in German. (The original version can be found here.) It is a preview of our Winter 2025 issue, out in early Janaury.
Emily Haber inter alia served as political director (2009-11) and state secretary (deputy minister, 2011-13) at the German foreign office. She held the same post at the interior ministry (2014-18), before serving, from 2018 to 2023, as Germany’s ambassador to the United States.
