Right-wing voices across Europe have been rallying behind US presidential hopeful Donald Trump, eyeing a transatlantic partnership rooted in shared Conservative values.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán signalled there would be a pivotal shift if Trump was elected on November 5.
“Today, in terms of gender, there is a pro-gender world in the Western hemisphere, in terms of the destruction of the traditional family and the propagation of these new forms of coexistence. This will change next Tuesday [November 5] and Patriots and Donald Trump will together pursue a traditional pro-family policy. So the Western world is facing a big change,” he said on November 3.
In late October, members of the Patriots for Europe within the European Parliament attended a Trump rally at Madison Square Garden in New York, emphasising alignment between their agenda and the former president’s platform.
“We were invited because we stand against globalisation, we are against war and fake news, we want to stand up against left-wing media lies, we are for a better future where our countries have better future absent from illegal migration and the decision making fall back into the hand of the respective population,” said Harad Vilimsky of Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ).
Many other leaders have been or are currently in the US supporting Trump’s campaign, such as Nigel Farage, founder of the UK’s right-wing party Reform UK. Sarah Knafo, a member of the French hard-right party Reconquête and Vice President of the Sovereignist group in EP, is also there.
Marion Maréchal, founder of the French right-wing movement’s Identity and Liberty, said she favoured the Republican candidate.
If Donald Trump wants to reduce the US involvement in NATO, it would finally push Europeans to take responsibility for their own collective security.
“If Donald Trump were elected — and I hope he will be, for the sake of the United States as well as Europe, given the disaster that Kamala Harris would be — it would be a good thing,” she said on October 9.
She argued that Trump’s stance on NATO and US Foreign policy could be good for Europe.
That sentiment was echoed by Knafo: “Donald Trump is labelled an isolationist, meaning he says ‘America First’.
“Well, that suits us, as we say ‘France First.’ Trump’s election would finally make us take responsibility for ourselves,” she said in a video published on social media on November 3.
“It would be up to us to invest in our own defence instead of waiting for the United States to protect us,” she added.
Others were less enthusiastic about Trump such as former European commissioner Thierry Breton.
Former European Commissioner for the Internal Market Thierry Breton has claimed that a win for Republican hopeful Donald Trump could sound the death knell for the European Union. https://t.co/RL0x1dnBke
— Brussels Signal (@brusselssignal) November 4, 2024
US foreign policy is an important issue in Europe and the Middle East.
On November 4, a Brussels Signal vox-pop about the US elections included voices from the Middle East, with one Lebanese respondent backing Trump and expressing fears that, if elected, Democrat hopeful Kamala Harris would perpetuate outgoing President Joe Biden’s policies in the region.
Unaligned MEP and YouTuber Fidias Panayiotou highlighted his own concerns.
“There is something that I hate about America and it’s their foreign policy,” he said, citing US involvement in conflicts around the globe.
As European Union right-wing leaders hope for a shared Conservative agenda with the Republican frontrunner, polls by the bloc’s elections watchdog and data analyst Europe Elects have shown Harris holding an edge among EU citizens.
They also revealed a sharp divide between western and eastern Europe with eastern European citizens leaning more towards Trump and western Europeans favouring Harris.
