Transcription
Back in January 2025, many commentators saw Donald Trump's return as US president as a boon to Europe's radical right. With figures from Hungary's Victor Orban to Germany's Alice Videl hoping that an ally in the White House might help them dismantle the EU and catalyze support for nationalist parties across Europe.
However, by late 2025, polls showed that Trump was pretty unpopular, even among supporters of Europe's right-wing populist parties. And in the past three weeks since the US and Israel launched their unpopular war on Iran, parties on the European right, from France's National Rally to the Alternative for Germany, have tried to distance themselves from Trump, leading to some suggestions that the transatlantic populist alliance might now be falling apart.
So, in this video, we'll discuss the changing relationship between Trump and Europe's political right, and explain why the European right now seems to be turning against him.
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We'll start with a summary of Trump's relationship with the European populist right. Trump's victory in the November 2024 US presidential election was celebrated by figures on the European radical right who saw Trump as their ideological ally in America. Italian Prime Minister George Maloney predicted the US-Italy relationship would grow even stronger. Dutch far-right leader Kurt Versus told Trump to never stop, always keep fighting. The leader of the Alternative for Germany, or AFD, Alice Videl, called Trump a model for us and said the result was a defeat for woke Hollywood. And Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orban, arguably Trump's closest European ally, described Trump's victory as a great chance for Hungary to be in close partnership and alliance with the US.
However, whilst Europe's radical right was generally ecstatic, some figures like France's Marian Nepen seemed more cautious. As commentators like The Guardian's John Henley and Chattamous's Armida Vanry suggested, supporting Trump could end up backfiring on Europe's hard right given Trump's America First aims. During his campaign, Trump has signaled the possibility of a US-EU trade war, pledging to impose tariffs on all EU imports, a move that would hurt European industrial interests, with analysts also noting that Trump's foreign policy would likely clash with the pro-Ukraine and pro-NATO stances of some of his allies like Italy's Maloney.
Interestingly, pre-US election polling found that supporters of two European hard-right parties, France's National Rally and the Sweden Democrats, actually wanted the Democrats' Kla Harris to win, not Trump. This might sound surprising, but it's likely because they thought Trump's tariff policy towards Europe would end up hurting their own economies, too.
Anyway, within weeks of taking office in early 2025, Trump's largely anti-European security and trade policies came to fruition. After suspending US intelligence sharing with Keev in early March following a public clash with Zilinski, Trump launched a transatlantic trade war in April with his so-called "Liberation Day" tariffs, including a 20% tariff on all EU imports. Some of Europe's radical right criticized the tariffs, with AFD leader Videl calling them "far too aggressive and self-defeating," while others condoned them, with Orban describing the trade war as "tactical" and AFD co-chair Tino Kala calling it "understandable."
As time went on, Trump became increasingly unpopular in Europe, even among supporters of Europe's radical right. A Politico Public First poll from December 2025 found that in France and Germany, while radical right-wing voters were more likely than the general population to view Trump positively, they were split pretty evenly into thirds in terms of viewing him positively, neither positively nor negatively, or negatively. While in the UK, a higher share, nearly half of populist right-wing voters, saw Trump positively.
As such, in recent months, some figures on Europe's radical right have become more openly critical of the US president's actions. In late January, following Trump's attack on Venezuela and threats towards Greenland, the president of France's National Rally, John Embardella, criticized what he called Trump's "imperial ambitions" and said the EU should "activate its anti-coercion instruments without delay and take targeted measures against American services and exports heading to Europe." Similarly, earlier this month, the AFD leaders condemned the US's strikes on Iran, with co-leader Kala even accusing the Trump administration of war crimes, citing its attack on an Iranian girl school.
So why is the European right apparently now turning on Trump? Well, the main reason is because Trump is extraordinarily unpopular in Europe. In January, Trump had net negative favorability ratings of at least minus 60 in all of Western Europe, and so far in 2026 seems to have done even more to anger and upset Europe. First, Trump made repeated threats to seize Danish and NATO territory Greenland, followed by an economic threat of an additional 10% tariff on eight European countries opposed to the move. Then the fatal shooting of two US citizens by US federal immigration agents provoked horror in Europe and calls for ICE to be banned from its security role at Italy's Winter Olympics. And last month, Trump launched his unpopular war against Iran with the US-Israeli strikes opposed by majorities in Germany, Italy, Spain, and the UK.
Not only does aligning with Trump put Europe's populist right against public opinion in their own countries, but there's also evidence that doing the opposite, in other words, actively criticizing or standing up to Trump, can bring electoral benefits. We've recently seen this in Denmark, where center-left Danish Prime Minister Meta Frederickson saw a five-point polling bounce after her firm defense of Greenland against Trump's threats of annexation, prompting her to call an early election taking place next week to take advantage of her renewed popularity.
This is also why parts of the center-right in Europe have started distancing themselves from Trump. German Chancellor Fredesh Mets, for instance, who initially seemed supportive of the US's military action in Iran, saying, "Now is not the time to lecture our allies," has since become much more critical, with his spokesperson describing it as "not NATO's war," and saying it has nothing to do with NATO. Similarly, the UK's Conservative Party leader Kemn has also tried to distance herself from her previous comments, having initially argued that the UK should have let the US use its bases to attack Iran.
The second reason the European right seems to be turning on Trump is the US's trade policy. As some analysts pointed out last year, Trump's tariff policies would likely hurt European industries and businesses. With a Brugal analysis from April 2025 finding that workers in Italy, the second largest EU exporter to the US, would be more exposed to Trump's tariffs due to Italy's fashion and car manufacturing industries. Trump's tariffs on Chinese goods have also meant that cheap Chinese exports are now being redirected to European markets, undercutting European manufacturers. Neither of these policies have been good for export-led European countries. Hence the more subdued reaction of France's radical right after Trump's victory.
In conclusion, while there's a lot more we could say on this topic, the main takeaway is that aligning with Trump is clearly a high-risk strategy for Europe's populist right, who might ultimately be forced to dump Trump or be damaged by association.
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