Most Europeans actually agree with Trump’s policies
GERMAN President Angela Merkel knew she was taking a risk by holding the G20 in Hamburg.
Such summits attract protesters with a penchant for balaclavas and molotov cocktails, so it’s normally safer to use remote resorts, like Evian and Gleneagles, that are easier to defend.
But things have been quieter in recent summits and the German elections are coming up soon.
So Merkel decided to hold the G20 a few months early and invite the world to her birth town.
It all promised to be reasonably quiet, until Donald Trump was elected president of the US.
His welcoming committee has been in the city for some time.
A Porsche dealership has been set ablaze, shopkeepers have been boarding up their windows and water cannon were used on protesters even before he arrived.
Their general theme, standing up to the wicked Trump, looked set to continue inside the G20 summit itself.
French President Emmanuel Macron has called for a “return to reason” on climate change and Merkel chose to hold talks on areas where the EU disagrees with Trump most: trade, immigration and global warming.
So the stage was set for a clash between progressive European values and American cold-heartedness – but there are two problems with the general idea.
The first is that many EU leaders are coming around to Trump’s way of thinking and the other is that, in many areas, European popular opinion is firmly on his side.
Take his notorious decision to ban immigration from various Muslim countries.
Even to raise such a proposal would shock most of those at the G20 and it’s generally taken to be a policy that proves the blackness of Trump’s heart.
But if European voters disagree with him, it’s more likely to be because they don’t think he goes far enough.
A survey by Chatham House this year showed that a majority in Austria, France, Germany, Greece and Italy would support a blanket ban on all immigration from Muslim countries.
In Poland, which Trump visited ahead of the summit, almost threequarters of the public would back a ban. This does filter through into politics.
A few weeks ago, the Slovakian prime minister declared that Islam had “no place” in his country.
The Czech Republic has told the EU it will not take any Muslim asylum seekers.
Prime Minister Mark Rutte only won re-election in the Netherlands after telling immigrants to “behave normally or go away”.
They might not say this on Twitter, but the language is as shocking as anything coming out of the White House.
When it comes to building walls against neighbours, Trump should look for tips from other G20 nations.
Macedonia built a wall with Greece last year, Lithuania is currently fencing off Russia’s Kaliningrad exclave and Norway is building a wall to keep out those making the rather heroic journey over its Arctic border with Russia.
Brazil, also a G20 member, has gone for a “virtual” wall, monitored by drones and satellites, around its 16 000km border.
So you can disagree with Trump’s plan to build a wall on the Mexican border, but it’s hard to dismiss the idea as crazy.
Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, some 40 countries have built fences against 60 neighbours.
The nation state is back in demand, as are walls: both are seen as useful tools to help manage a new era of mass immigration.
The EU’s idea of borderless travel was invented when net migration was at a fraction of today’s levels. Now, we see chaos. For some Europeans, even a wall is not enough.
Austria has been talking about deploying soldiers and armoured vehicles against migrants who might come over from Italy. Enough to shock even Trump. On trade, it’s unclear what Merkel – or any EU leader – has to teach.
Trump’s “America first” trade policy simply mimics the Europe first protectionism that has defined the EU since its inception.
Trump has at least decided to keep Nafta, the free trade deal with Canada and Mexico.
The EU struggles to agree on deals with any of its major trading partners.
Last week’s much-feted agreement with Japan is only an “outline”.
And the US has been quicker than the EU to start free trade negotiations with Britain – talks start this month.
The difference is, mainly, one of language.
The EU talks about being globally minded, while practising shameless protectionism.
Trump boasts about his protectionism, while not (so far) managing to do very much of it.
Even on climate change, Trump is not the villain that he pretends to be.
He walked out of the Paris Agreement, but America’s record is – and continues to be – strikingly impressive.
Thanks to the fracking energy revolution, and ever-more-efficient cars and machinery, the per capita carbon emissions in the US are now at levels not seen since the 1960s.
The work might have been done by basic consumer demand rather than government diktats, but the US is doing rather well with marrying economic growth and decarbonisation.
On the environment, the US should be judged by its achievements, not its promises.
And if Trump is saying he’s not too worried about global warming, he’s also speaking for a lot of Europeans.
A Pew survey shows just two in five say that they are very concerned about climate change, perhaps because environmental progress is doing rather well under its own steam.
So, again, it comes down to language.
Trump was elected president, in part, because he has a genius for provoking his enemies into a deranged frenzy.
But there’s not much point in the EU, or any country, succumbing to the same temptation: this is how populists win.
He might be jaw-droppingly undiplomatic, pointlessly argumentative and routinely offensive – characteristics that needlessly harm America’s reputation.
But he won the presidential election because a great many of his supposedly fringe views are popular and, ergo, mainstream.
Hard as it may be for his European counterparts to admit, this is true on both sides of the Atlantic.