The ravages unleashed by the commercial war of Donald Trump divided the far -right parties of Europe which courted its Maga movement.
Alice Weidel, one of the leaders of the alternative for Germany (AFD), described the movements of the American president as “far too aggressive and self-deficit”. Former Goldman Sachs analyst said the so -called reciprocal rates – that Trump has paused for 90 days after a stock market crash and fears of a global recession – were “fundamentally bad for free trade”.
But Weidel's co-president, Tino Chrupalla, a former painter and decorator of the East German State of Saxony, described Trump's approach as “understandable”.
“Sometimes you have to restrict free trade to protect your economy,” said Chrupalla. “President Trump wants to force other countries to negotiate. He wants to improve the American trade balance and stimulate industry.”
Analysts said the divergence had spoken to a fundamental tension at the heart of AFD which could also be observed in the other populist movements in Europe: how to explain to their voters an American protectionist policy that would harm their country.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni – one of the rare European leaders in Trump's good books – described his prices as “an erroneous choice” and expressed his hope that they will be canceled in negotiations with the EU. Visiting the White House this month, Meloni offered to organize a meeting In Rome between Trump and EU officials, the American president has so far avoided.
Matteo Salvini, partner of the Coalition of Meloni and leader of the far -right League party, defended Trump's prices last month and said they could become an opportunity for Italian companies. Since then, he has moderated his position after the backlash of the Festival of the Brothers of Italy of Meloni.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, Trump's long -standing ally and the Bruxelles antagonist, described the Price War of the American President as “tactical” and a means of extracting more EU concessions.
André Ventura, who leads Chega's party to the far right in Portugal, has also taken the side of Trump, saying that his country should imitate the United States and use prices to “protect themselves” from cheaper textile and agricultural imports from China and India.
But in France, the extreme right of national gathering took care not to seem to be aligned with the Trump administration's business war despite a protectionist economic platform. Marine Le Pen said that France should practice “intelligent protectionism” and raise Brussels's trade policy to deal with Trump's “brutal approach”.
The tension between different factions of the German extreme right may have been amplified by Trump, but it is prior to its presidency. Founded in 2013 by economists opposed to the boosts of the euro zone, the AFD has gradually widened its ranks to include anti-globalists who also tend to adopt ethno-nationalism.
“It is not exclusive to AFD, but it is very clear in party platforms and positions: you have a more neoliberal wing and a more social protectionist wing,” said Thomas Greven, political scientist at Freie University in Berlin.
But all the factions firmly believed in national sovereignty and adopted autocracy, he said. This meant that they “would finally end up that a country (like the United States) is looking for its national interests – especially since they consider Trump is an ally in mind”.
The party marked a second record place in the parliamentary elections in February, after senior personalities in the Trump circle – notably Elon Musk and the vice -president JD Vance – has been campaigning for this.
Peter Boehringer, AFD vice-president and former sales consultant who supports free trade, sought to play the interior divisions on the Trump trade war.
He pointed out that the Maga movement itself was not united on the issue: while Trump's sales advisor, Peter Navarro, strongly defends the prices, Musk – the richest man in the world and the Tsar to reduce Trump cost – is in favor of free trade and called Navarro as “more stupid than a bag of bricks”.
“I tend to see Elon Musk,” said Boehringer. “Free trade is good for everyone,” he said. But he insisted that in AFD, the subject was “not a big problem and not a very sensitive problem”.
The success of AFD, which has increased more in the ballot boxes since the February vote, has deeply unstable traditional parties, which have struggled to formulate an effective strategy to oppose it.
An eminent member of Christian Democrats (CDU), whose chief Friedrich Merz should become the next German Chancellor next month, said that AFD legislators should join parliamentary committees.
Jens Spahn of the CDU argued that politicians had to recognize the millions of people who had voted for the party and take them seriously. But other parties accused him of having violated the “firewall” aimed at preventing normalization of AFD – a strategy that Vance had also directed against only a few days before the German elections.
An AFD delegation went to the inauguration of Trump in Washington in January. He understood Christina Baum, who is one of the many figures of the party to say that Europe had only for the benefits of Trump's decision.
“The fact that the EU and Germany suffer is a homemade problem,” Baum told FT. The largest nation in Europe “should have opted for a long time for a healthy degree of self-sufficiency,” she said.
Maximilian Krah, one of the most controversial deputies in the party, was even stronger in his support for Trump's prices, describing them as “the biggest changer in global trade policy since the end of the war (of the second world)”.
Manès Weisskircher at the University of Technology in Dresden, who is an expert on the far right, said that AFD could risk voter reactions if Trump policies have inflicted damage to Germany and that they were largely non -critical. But he warned that the party could also simply change the blame on the government.
“Far -right parties like AFD thrive on a strong dissatisfaction with certain parts of the company,” said Weisskircher. “So, if the German economy is still struggling, AFD could gain support by supporting public dismay on the government.”
Additional report by Amy Kazmin to Rome, Leila Abboud in Paris, Marton Dunai in Budapest and Barney Jopson in Madrid
