Trump II is upon us, after all. As widely reported in media reactions over the last week, the new President-elect may (or may not, the man is utterly unpredictable) challenge Europe’s current policies on a number of strategically important fronts: from the credibility of America’s security guarantee to Uncle Sam’s continued support for Ukraine’s military efforts; and from the risk of a transatlantic trade war to boosting Europe’s nationalist forces.

Indeed, while polite and at times even warm congratulations have reached Trump from numerous European leaders (including Commission President Ursula von der Leyen), the most hearty and euphoric reactions certainly came from EU-sceptic and nationalist figures such as Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, Italy’s Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini and France’s National Rally leader Marine Le Pen. Their transnational party alliance and European Parliament group ‘Patriots for Europe’ clearly feel the strongest kinship of any European political tendency with Trump’s brand of insurrectional conservatism. And they are openly betting that the tycoon’s return to the White House will boost their political weight within the EU and beyond.

The extent to which that is so will also depend on the willingness and ability of Europe’s centre-right actors to engage fully, systematically and constructively with the new President-elect and the broad constellation of forces shaping his second Administration at all levels. It would be a big mistake if EU-sceptic nationalist leaders remained the sole or even the privileged European interlocutors that President Trump and his people trust and consult to form an opinion on European affairs and define American positions on them. It was largely so during Trump I, and it has unfortunately not changed since. Things can and hopefully will get better under Trump II if relevant actors manage to keep in mind and take advantage of three basic circumstances.     

First, unlike many of his long-standing friends amongst Europe’s ‘revolutionary conservatives’, Trump is fundamentally not an ideologue, but a businessman, a  transactional leader focused on advancing what he perceives to be America’s national (and often his own personal) interests. This might reduce the breadth of his strategic vistas, but it arguably also deprives them of the rigid fundamentalism typical of more ideological leaders. In other words, despite his professed antipathy for the EU as a ‘foe’ of the new MAGA US, Trump is, rather more than Gorbachev in the 1980s according to Margaret Thatcher’s famous definition, ‘a man we can do business with’. The scope and importance of joint transatlantic challenges is such that a constructive engagement focusing on shared interests, hard bargaining and avoiding any grandstanding about values seems like the way to go.

Second, even if we shift the focus from interests to values, Trump’s Republicans still appear the most obvious partners for Europe’s mainstream conservatives in the current US political scene. Certainly not the perfect partners, and of course not as like-minded partners as Reagan’s or McCain’s Republicans used to be. But probably still closer than the Democrats of the Harris and Ocasio-Cortez generation, dominated by identity politics, given to runaway fiscal profligacy and advancing constitutional proposals (such as abolishing the filibuster and undermining the independence of the Supreme Court) that paradoxically come straight out of the illiberal democrat playbook of some of Trump’s European allies. This is not to downplay the plebiscitarian and illiberal impulses of the MAGA movement, which place it well out of the traditional comfort zone of Euro-Atlantic conservatism. If one looks beyond the often shrill and discomposed language of its promoters, however, Republican proposals from the economy to migration, and from energy to federalism arguably remain more compatible with the traditional policy preferences of Europe’s centre-right than those of their Democratic adversaries.      

Third and most importantly, Europe’s political constellation now appears much more amenable to a constructive engagement with Trump’s America than it was under Trump I. Unlike then, governmental partnerships between the mainstream centre-right and more anti-establishment right-wing forces are by now common across the old continent, from the Netherlands to Italy, and from Finland and Sweden to Czechia. Even France is ruled by what de facto amounts to a minority centre-right government partly reliant on the cooperation of the National Rally and its allies in the Assembly. The new European Commission is shaping up to be the most centre-right leaning in decades. While, in the European Parliament, forces to the left of the European People’s Party (EPP) have no majority for the first time since the body’s direct election, a sea change clearly accompanied by growing cooperation between the EPP and the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR).  

All this means that, so to say, the ice between the mainstream centre-right and more ‘Trumpist’-like forces has already been broken in Europe. There is no reason to disbelieve that a similar practice of pragmatic cooperation could be extended to the transatlantic level under Trump II, while remaining conscious of the significant differences between the two sides. No doubt Italy’s Prime Minister and ECR President Georgia Meloni is well positioned to take a leading role towards that outcome. Looking at developments in Germany, she might soon find a valuable ally in Friedrich Merz. Indeed, the likely new German Chancellor seems a rather more conservative and businesslike leader than Angela Merkel, the queen of Europe’s centre-right under Trump I, whose relationship with the American maverick was notoriously dreadful.

Trump II, therefore, will likely be bumpy but need not be the end of the transatlantic relationship that many fear (or hope for). It can also offer the opportunity for a much-needed check-up and recalibration. The willingness of centre-right actors to set aside their reservations and fully partner with the new American Administration may make the difference between the two outcomes.