By BRANKA MILANOVIĆ*

The attitude of Western elites in Donald Trump's first term (and this will probably be the case in his second) is to treat it as some kind of natural disaster and hope it will be over quickly.

1.

Eastern European elites felt a similar sentiment towards Mikhail Gorbachev to what European elites currently feel towards Donald Trump. Both Mikhail Gorbachev and Donald Trump present tones that are completely dissonant with what was common and acceptable in Eastern European satellite countries and among Western allies for half a century and eighty years, respectively.

The Eastern European elites were used to the signals coming from Moscow that emphasized the “indestructible” unity of the socialist bloc, the claim that the socialist bloc was the most politically developed part of the world and that they were essentially moving from one success to another. This does not mean that it was fair or true. It just means that this was the message coming from Moscow. The Eastern elites were used to this, although they knew how to adapt to changes according to the type of leadership in the USSR.

But they certainly did not expect the General Secretary of the Communist Party to dissociate himself from what his party was doing in the Soviet Union and abroad, and, moreover, to say that the existence of the socialist bloc actually depended on the countries themselves. Mikhail Gorbachev famously said, very mildly, that the countries of Eastern Europe should go “their own way”, quoting the words of a Frank Sinatra song.

Likewise, (Western) European elites have been accustomed since 1945 to a certain type of message from Washington, which may have varied slightly from one president to another, but its basic line has always been that the United States and Europe (formerly only Western Europe and in the last thirty years all of Europe) are liberal democracies, which are united by their political values, as well as economically and militarily.

With Donald Trump, at least two parts of this message are blurred. First, his commitment to liberal democracy is very weak and it is not even clear that he cares about whether the countries that are part of the Western political alliance are liberal democracies or not. Second, he questioned, in his first term, and may do the same in his second, the meaning of NATO as a mutual defense bloc. Instead, he saw it as a burden on the United States, which has to pay the bulk of military expenditure.

These two elements cannot fail to arouse a feeling of unease in Western ruling circles. It is this similarity that I have in mind.

The attitude of Western elites in Donald Trump’s first term (and this will probably be the case in his second) is to treat him as a kind of natural disaster and hope that it will be over quickly. They cannot oppose him because the power of the United States is overwhelming, and especially now, when Europe desperately needs the United States, since the wars in Ukraine and Palestine continue.

2.

So there is no doubt that they should follow Donald Trump, at least verbally. As I said before, they may feel extremely uncomfortable with the current situation. Europeans feel with Donald Trump as if they were trapped in a cage with a tiger and the goal was simply to wait long enough for the tiger to get out of the cage (and not get eaten first).

I don't believe that European elites will change simply because they don't feel the need to change.

They see what happened in the United States as a temporary anomaly, a very American anomaly, and hope that the situation will return to normal within four years. However, it is true that populist and right-wing leaders, whose worldview is much closer to that of Donald Trump, may feel emboldened and now more realistically hope that they will be able to come to power and replace (in their eyes) the eclipsed liberal elites.

As I said, I think that the European elites would treat Donald Trump as a natural disaster, like an earthquake, and simply hope to survive. Of course, they cannot oppose him directly. And certainly not in the current situation, which is close to war. But they will have to “dance” very carefully around the issues and, combining the presentation of mutual interests to Donald Trump with personal flattery, try to win him over to their side.

The problem for them is that there are other alternative elites on the horizon who are much more in tune with Donald Trump. I am thinking here of the right-wing parties in Germany, Austria, Spain, France, the Netherlands and Sweden. They share Donald Trump’s aversion to migrants and would not be opposed to the implementation of industrial protectionist policies. Of course, this last point can be a double-edged sword, since European protectionism can also affect American companies. But they may be encouraged to defend their interests to their voters with less inhibition, now that they have an ideological ally in Washington (just as the anti-communist elites now have an ally in Moscow).

3.

The Soviet Union’s problem was different from China’s. Not only was the Soviet Union much closer geographically to Europe and had a military that could potentially, in the 1950s or even 1960s, conquer parts of Europe, but the Soviet Union also had political parties and trade unions in the West that were ideologically affiliated with it. None of this applies to China.

China is far away and certainly has no intention or possibility of attacking Europe militarily. Second, China does not have the soft power or ideological appeal that the Soviet Union had. The Chinese threat to Europe is therefore, in my view, non-existent. On the other hand, the challenge that China poses to the United States is real, quite simply because the question at this level is who will be the hegemon global. Therefore, it is in the interests of the United States to have large and rich countries like those in the European Union on its side.

I do not believe that the United States will abandon Europe. It is very important to the United States. Of course, what I am saying here does not directly address the issue of Trump's leadership, but the broader issue of Europe's strategic importance to the United States.

I agree that the issue of the impact of globalization on inequality has played an important role both at the geopolitical level and at the level of domestic politics. This is the argument I present in my next book. It is not exactly new, but I do not believe it has been presented in a unified and coherent way.

The rise of China, and Asia more broadly, is shifting the center of economic activity from the Atlantic to the Pacific. This is causing Asian incomes, relative to those of the West, to return to the level they were at 300 years ago. The differences between Europe and China, and Asia in general, were then much smaller than they were later, when the Industrial Revolution made Europe much more prosperous and militarily stronger. As far as the United States is concerned, China is becoming a formidable competitor, both economically and militarily. This is China's effect on geopolitics and, in particular, on the role of the United States as a hegemon world.

And there is also a second effect of China, which is economic. This is the effect of Chinese and Asian growth on the relative positions of the Western middle classes. It is a fact that the European middle classes, although still much richer than the Chinese, have not progressed at rates comparable to those of China, and that certain parts of the Western middle classes are falling down the world pecking order. This does not mean much at first, but gradually, if members of the French middle class, who were in the 70th percentile worldwide, fall to the 50th percentile, they will be unable to afford certain goods and services whose prices are set internationally.

Europe’s relative decline will therefore be experienced on a very personal level. I would like to point out that while the geopolitical challenge clearly comes from China and is directed at the United States, the economic challenge is broader, as other highly populated Asian countries such as India, Vietnam, Indonesia, etc. are also experiencing rapid growth. To give an example: just 40 years ago, the United Kingdom and India had an identical global (total) GDP. Today, India’s GDP is four times higher. This is therefore one of the major shifts in the relative economic power between Asia and Europe.

*Branko Milanović is a professor at the City University of New York. He was chief economist in the research department of the World Bank. Author of, among other books, Capitalism without rivals: the future of the system that dominates the world (However).

Translation: Fernando Lima das Neves.

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