Trump, Putin and now Xi – Europeans are at the mercy of an authoritarian axis

With cities across Europe in flames following riots in France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Albania, and Belgium, I found myself recalling the Trump administration’s December 2025 National Security Strategy – which I wrote about for the Nerve – and its plans for Europe, a continent it regards as being in the process of “civilisational erasure”. Among other priorities is “cultivating resistance to Europe’s current trajectory within European nations”. What does this mean? “Resistance” is not “opposition" – it implies operating outside the political realm, using direct action methods. In addition, the wording “within European nations” tells us this is not an American commitment to run public relations campaigns; this is a declaration of intent to interfere, to operate within our societies, including by covert means.

We don’t know exactly what the Trump administration is doing in Europe, although there have been indications of funding being made available to Maga-aligned groups in Europe promoting “civilisational bonds” with the US. But did the Trump administration play a role in the recent unrest, where a political message around the cost of living was hijacked by violent thugs that set fire to buildings and looted shops? I asked a disinformation expert whether US online activity was playing a role in pushing the riots. His answer? “It’s definitely happening.” He went on to explain that Maga-aligned bot accounts are active on social media, apparently operated out of or on behalf of the US, pushing divisive and dangerous messaging. And he added that this was by no means the first time he was seeing this phenomenon. This is what “cultivating resistance” looks like. In a world where all the major social media platforms are controlled by Maga-aligned billionaires, this should not be a surprise, even if it is disturbing.

Europe’s problems don’t end with online manipulation. We are in a period of unparalleled vulnerability. As Trump considers the prospect of a damaging defeat at the midterms, his response is not to moderate, but to double down in those areas where Congress cannot stop him, notably foreign policy. Back in September, Trump signed into law a new, hawkish sanctions package on Russia, enacted in the late senator Lindsey Graham’s memory. But all that is out of the window now, with a diesel deal between Trump and Putin and a series of corresponding pressure points applied on the Ukrainians: a cessation of US intelligence sharing and weapons deliveries, Starlink satellites no longer supporting Ukraine’s operations and Trump back to claiming, untruthfully, that the war was started and prolonged by Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The US president is even considering unfreezing Russian assets. All the while, Russia’s intensifying air raids immiserate Ukrainian civilians as a long, cold winter sets in.

This feels like a turning point: Europe is distracted by political unrest, economic headwinds, persistent populism and a dawning realisation that Trumpian rhetoric isn’t just bluster, it’s the real deal. It’s not that Trump has decided that his friends are in Beijing and Moscow. It’s that Trump doesn’t believe in friends; he believes in deals. And if deals are to be made, Trump wants to deal with the big fish, Putin and Xi Jinping, not the small fry in Europe. And the biggest deal of all, the one that Trump has hankered after since before he was even re-elected to the White House in 2024, is now in prospect: a summit with the dictators he idolises in Shanghai in November. At this meeting, if Putin gets his way, the great dictators will carve up Ukraine, with America, once Europe’s ally, a willing handmaiden to European borders being redrawn to suit Moscow.

Why is Trump doing this? I agree with those that argue that he is in some way beholden to Putin, although I believe his motivations are more political than any fear of sexual kompromat. But what’s the role of Xi and China? We often try too hard to find hard-power motivations for Trump’s actions when the truth lies in the increasingly brittle psychology of an ageing narcissist facing a loss of political relevance as his presidency shifts towards its lame-duck years. To be far from Washington DC and opinion polls that put you as one of the least popular presidents in history, instead being in a room with two other autocrats ostensibly deciding the future of the world – that may in itself be the objective for Trump, not any particular policy outcome.

Where does this leave Europe? It is not without leverage – whether in the AI space, where German lenses and Dutch lithography machines are a crucial element of the advanced chip supply chain, or in the wider economy, with the EU still the largest trading partner of the US. But Europe has proved incapable of exercising that leverage, consumed with its own instabilities and uncertainties and unable to act as one. Even something as basic as European countries turning over their ageing stock of Patriot missiles to the Ukrainians in their hour of desperate need has proved impossible, with Greece and Spain clinging to their arsenals. And all the while, Russia’s long-term efforts to promote populism in Europe, now aided and abetted by the US, is looking likely to bear fruit: pro-Russian parties in Germany (the AfD) and France (Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National) are leading in the polls, spelling disaster for European support to Ukraine or standing up to Russia’s wider aggression. Here in the UK, Farage seems to have passed his peak, but the chances of the Moscow-friendly Reform UK being kingmakers after the next election remains a real one. With Merz, Macron and Burnham all largely focused on internal matters, Europe is leaderless and, increasingly, defenceless.

Arthur Snell hosts the Behind the Lines podcast. His book How Britain Broke the World: War, Greed and Blunders from Kosovo to Afghanistan, 1997-2022 is published by Canbury Press