Since taking over the White House for his second term, President Donald Trump has imposed an aggressive agenda on US foreign policy. In recent weeks, his administration’s change of stance on the war in Ukraine has plunged the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) into its biggest crisis ever, casting doubt on the organization’s future and the relationship between the US and Europe.
In an interview with BdF, socialist activist Brian Becker, national coordinator of the ANSWER Coalition and central organizer of the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) in the US, points out that the Ukraine war ushered in a “new era” in world geopolitics, marking the end of 30 years of US unilateralism.
“The fact that the Biden administration could not crush Russia meant that a new world had started. Is it a good world? Well, we would call it a multipolar world, meaning not just US power, but now there’s Russian power, there’s Chinese power, maybe there’s Indian power, maybe there’s some BRICS power.”
The US and Russian authorities met in Saudi Arabia in February for their first high-level talks in three years, with the main topic being negotiations to end the war in Ukraine. The US’s rapprochement with Vladimir Putin’s government generated a wave of criticism in Europe. From a geopolitical perspective, the move has been compared to that by former US President Richard Nixon (1913-1994) through his secretary of state Henry Kissinger (1923-2023).
In the 1970s, when the Soviet Union and China were two socialist powers, the US sought a rapprochement with the latter to weaken the Soviet regime. Today, what Donald Trump is apparently doing is the opposite.
“Instead of taking China and bringing it into the US orbit by pretending to be its close friend, the US is doing it with Russia, trying to bring Russia into the US orbit. That’s part of it. And there’s another part, which is that Trump is trying to reconquer Europe in a different way,” points out Brian Becker.
Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the US-Europe relationship has been based on NATO, with a strong US military presence on the continent. The new relationship Trump is building takes place through US support for the European far right, with the active participation of tech tycoon Elon Musk.
Read below the main excerpts from the interview.
BdF: You said the Trump administration is trying to repeat a tactic Henry Kissinger adopted in the 1970s when the US made peace with China to isolate the USSR. Now Washington is trying to isolate Beijing, isn’t it?
Brian Becker: Whatever one thinks about the Russian government or about the invasion, it was clearly in response to the refusal of the Biden administration to negotiate with Russia about Ukraine. When Russia invaded, that was a big decision, because they knew they would be evicted from the world economy, they knew they would be sanctioned and their assets would be frozen, but obviously, the Putin government decided that they could no longer take the unipolar world.
Therefore, the invasion of Ukraine – with which I was surprised, I didn’t expect it, as I thought they were still negotiating – changed the world and the fact that the Biden administration could not crush Russia meant that a new world had started. Is it a good world? Well, we’d call it a multipolar world, meaning not just US power, but now there’s Russian power, there’s Chinese power, maybe there’s Indian power, maybe there’s some BRICS power.
Is that the solution to the dangers of social inequality or the danger of war? No. Before World War One and World War Two, we had a multipolar world, and that led to the Second World War. In the case of the Second World War, 90 million people died in four years. So multipolarity is not our vision of the future, our vision of the future is socialism. Socialism is the basis on which countries can actually live together in peace and cooperation, rather than endlessly compete for markets, raw materials and exploitation. So, our solution is not multipolarity, it is socialism. But multipolarity is the inevitable consequence of [the existence of] large countries like Russia and China, which end up rejecting the unipolar reality that the US has tried and succeeded in imposing on the world for 30 years.
Trump, unlike the Biden administration or the previous ones – the Obama administration, George W. Bush or the Clinton administration – is returning to an earlier era of US diplomacy, an era most notably led by Henry Kissinger, but not Kissinger alone, that recognizes that both Russia and China are large countries that have to be dealt with in a particular way, meaning that they have to be treated seriously.
In 1971, Kissinger secretly visited China and, in 1972, Richard Nixon went there with Kissinger. They met with Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai. Nixon and Kissinger’s effort was not simply to treat China with a degree of respect and as a great power, but also to bring China into the US orbit against the Soviet Union.
Now, many people are saying – or some people are saying – that what Trump is doing is Henry Kissinger in reverse. Instead of taking China and bringing it into the US orbit by pretending to be its close friend, the US is doing the same with Russia, trying to bring Russia into the US orbit, that’s part it. And there’s a second part, which is that Trump is trying to reconquer Europe in a different way.
With the weakening of NATO, what should the United States’ relationship with Europe look like?
The Biden administration and previous US administrations have used NATO as the primary way to maintain US hegemony over Europe. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, there was way for the US to basically take over Central and Eastern Europe. What Trump is basically saying is “Well, there’s another way we can dominate Europe.”
A little bit different, not simply by the exercise of NATO, but by accelerating the coming to power in Europe of right-wing political parties, like AfD in Germany, RN in France, the second largest party in Belgium is the fascist party. Trump and Elon Musk and these right-wing reactionaries have one realistic foreign policy towards Russia and China, but also a very far-right political agenda towards not only Europe but also Global South countries, including Latin America.
Now, what Trump and Musk are doing is playing with fire from the point of view of the rest of the American establishment, because they think that if Europe really becomes fascist, which could happen again, since it’s an organic part of decaying capitalism – that they will lose control of Europe. It will be the political alliance between a fascist or semi-fascist Europe and the United States.
If it’s premised only on Trump, but Trump may not be president in four years. A centrist party can be back in power in the United States. In other words, they are playing with fire by allowing the new alignment between the US and Europe to be based on far-right politics rather than the centrist institutions (NATO, IMF, World Bank, UN, etc., etc.).
How much of the Trump administration’s ideological agenda is a nationalist issue and how much does it respond to a larger fascist movement coordinated with Europe?
If you look at the Trump administration, it’s a coalition. Steve Bannon, who is not in the administration, is the leader of the far-right America First movement. He also wants right-wing parties to win in Europe and has been traveling for the past couple of years to Europe to give speeches for fascists. There is another part of the coalition, which is at war with Steve Bannon, led by Elon Musk.
They are billionaires, they have a different agenda that overlaps that of Bannon. Their agenda basically is the plunder of the US treasury. They want to take control of Social Security, MediCare and MedicAid. They want to get rid of all regulations that minimize pollution.
And Elon Musk is also a racist. He’s from South Africa, but how did he end up in South Africa? He went to South Africa because his grandfather, who had no connection with that country, with South African apartheid, led a Nazi party in Canada and migrated in 1950 from Canada to South Africa because he wanted to live in an apartheid fascist government. They also want to promote pro-Western white chauvinist racist policies in Europe. So there are two wings of the Trump administration. There’s a third wing – actually, there are more than three, but there are three basic ones – which is another group of billionaires who don’t really care about Europe.
All they care about is basically taking control of the US economy and getting ever richer. So I would say that two of the three main wings of the Trump administration are dedicated to promoting the ultra-right in Europe.
The main representatives of these currents, Steve Bannon and Elon Musk, recently made a Nazi-like salute. What does this mean?
In the past, about 20 years ago, if you did that, your political life would be over. You couldn’t do a fascist salute and say “Oh, I didn’t mean it”. No, you’d be finished. But there has been a move towards a first test to see how far they can go.
They don’t need to do this. There was a famous American politician in the South, his name was Huey Long, who said that if fascism came to America, it would just be wrapped in the American flag. For example, you don’t use German Nazi iconography or German fascist salutes, but it’s tempting for these fascist forces because Elon Musk is very excited.
He feels like they’re changing the world. These are people who have a messianic feeling. They feel that “We are the chosen people. We are the leaders”. They’re fueled with this kind of hubris, and fascist arrogance. And now they’re feeling like “Oh, we’re getting away with it because even if the liberals attack us, our base doesn’t mind.” So they’re moving rapidly to make it more openly fascist. That’s why I say it’s a fascist tendency, but it’s not a finished process yet.
