Starting with the New York Times’ Thomas L. Friedman, everybody writes an open letter to U.S. President Donald Trump. Friedman somewhat praises him; the United Methodist Council of Bishops' “in the mighty name of Jesus Christ," asks him to restart aid to their African churches.
Friedman’s letter interests more people than the United Methodists' help list. He warns the president that “this” Israeli government is behaving in ways that threaten hard-core U.S. interests in the region and “Netanyahu is not our friend.” Friedman says, Trump should have "independent negotiations with Hamas, Iran and the Houthis.” He does not mince his words: “You have signaled to him that he has no purchase on you – that you will not be his patsy.”
That's so true! Mr. Trump is anything but anybody’s fool! That is the one and only reason for him not taking any grown-up person into the Cabinet Room other than himself. (Remember, his secretary of defense is a schmuck named Peter Brian Hegseth!) But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took to heart his words that all his Cabinet members were not Jews, but they were all Zionists, missing the point that nothing is crucial to Trumpism as Trump’s own essentiality! Carl Jung, a Swiss psychologist who founded the school of analytical psychology, used to say that when you can look into your own heart, your visions will become clear; when you look outside, you start dreaming! His emphasis on introspection must be especially true for someone whose own wife calls him “The Donald.”
To make this long introduction achieve its goal, I could start writing an open letter to President Trump, but I guess a president who never attends his own government’s intelligence briefings would not bother reading Mr. Friedman in a newspaper that is a two-time winner of Trump’s Fake News Awards. So, I’ll confine my comments to Europe.
I know there is no love lost between Trump and Europeans. When the president failed to get reelected in 2020, some European prime ministers and Brussels bureaucrats (or Brussels sprouts in Trumpian parlance) expressed relief as if he would never come and pay them back. He came back in 2024, and the worst European fears have come true! As The Economist says, Europe has failed in “Trump-proofing” their military and commerce; so they will suffer, accordingly! The Economist thinks that Europe may become geopolitical roadkill: “like a deer caught in a lorry’s headlights.”
I think the lorry has a giant American flag on it, and the logo of MAGA, and the designated driver of that truck for the moment is Vice President JD Vance. President Trump can hardly show one point where his VP maintained a consistent, persistent, invariable position. His hypocritical flip-flops are not courageous policy improvements. Vance’s crossing from Trump critic to supporter is just one example. He used to call Trump a “cultural heroin” and his insulting him about his ability as a leader is still fresh in our memories. His attitude as “more royalist than the king” has driven a “wedge” between the U.S. and Europe so destructive that even Trump himself is having difficulty digging it up. His out-of-place meddling with the president and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s chat at the Oval Office delayed the U.S. mineral agreement between the two countries. The discussion JD Vance caused came at a terrible moment for Trump, because he was “tenderizing and marinating” Zelenskyy to end his war with Russia.
Vice President JD Vance’s speech at the Munich Security Defense and later seeking to downplay the rift he caused has spooked Europeans so much so that they have forgotten the fact that they have been making Türkiye wait at their door for the last 66 years (we first applied for membership in the European Economic Community in 1959, probably the current Brussels sprouts were not even born then) ... One European leader after another said Türkiye is a valuable and important European country, hoping that a little EU carrot could tease the Turks to take the front lines the U.S. troops are going to vacate!
Yeah, sure.
Jokes aside! Despite the European leaders, Europe is important for the U.S. MAGA or anything else should not put “the EU in a pickle” as the Economist fears. Reason No. 1: It is always dangerous to leave Europeans alone since they have proved throughout their history that they will be at each other’s throats. To restore the peace might cost the lives of 350,000 American soldiers.
Reason No. 2 is even more costly. The end of Pax Americana might hasten total Western Decline; the post-1945 international order is not only militarily important, but the U.S. employed its overwhelming power to shape and direct commercial relations. It is true that the era of American dominance is drawing to an end as the country's power declines, but its ability to regulate global economics is more important than global security. They cannot buy one drop of Middle Eastern oil if the global economic order goes south; Trump must know by now better than anyone else that his country’s domestic crude (traditional and shale) oil production. Any part of the U.S. president's forging better ties with their Saudi hosts will not ingratiate Americans to the Muslim people.
So, that Old Order of nearly seven decades' duration should not fade before a new one replaces it. Neither denial nor talking from your high American horse will create that new order. Real European leaders – not those sprouts in Brussels – should be Trump’s real interlocutor in building the new world order.
Carl Jung also says, “If you stop being available, everything changes.”
