Schmidt on Trump’s Impact on Far-Right Leadership in Europe
Pardee Professor Vivien Ann Schmidt was recently quoted in a story for Expresso, a Portuguese newspaper, where she explained how President Donald Trump’s sympathetic stance toward Russia has peeved the far-right allies in Europe. Additionally, she provided insights about his recent realignment in foreign policy involving steep tariffs and NATO skepticism, which have further complicated diplomatic dialogue with the continent’s leaders.
The president’s pro-Russia rhetoric, according to Schmidt, is stirring trouble for far-right entities in Poland and the Netherlands that have expressed support for Ukraine. Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, in contrast, has managed to salvage her friendship with Trump using a moderated approach while vociferously backing Ukraine.
“The tariffs pose a greater problem,” said Schmidt. “But extreme right parties are playing a wait and see game. Clearly, they don’t like them. But since the EU is in charge of negotiating, and it has adopted something of a wait-and-see attitude at the moment, national extreme right parties have tended to pay dead on the issue. This won’t be likely to last, if and when the tariffs are implemented.”
Owing to the president’s combative negotiation style, far-right leaders in Canada and Australia have already dissociated themselves from Trumpist ideologies. Conversely, Schmidt observed that Marine Le Pen of France who was found guilty in an embezzlement case and subsequently barred from running in elections, has taken a page from Trump’s and her father’s playbook, protesting against the judicial system. But it’s unclear if Le Pen’s approach is still closely aligned with Trump’s because of the events that have unfolded in the first 100 days of his presidency.
Schmidt said Meloni, in comparison, is an astute politician who “has managed to balance a centrist stance” — one that’s “strongly pro-Ukraine and pro EU-compatible” with more well-thought-out economic policies coupled with anti-immigration policies endorsed by the extreme right.
The professor also stressed the need of centrist parties and pro-EU entities to shift their focus on new tariffs imposed by Trump which impact state operations, tax collection, and public services as well as their provide unwarranted benefits to the oligarchs.
“In other words, it needs to show that in the end, Trump’s policies are all benefiting the globalist US elite, that is, the billionaires who control the major global platforms,” she said. “But it is not enough for the centrist parties, and in particular the center left, to say ‘don’t vote for them’ because they support Trumpist policies. They need to develop new innovative ideas to address the discontents that are the reason citizens have been voting for the extremes in the first place.”
To read the full article and Prof. Schmidt’s comments, click here.
Vivien Ann Schmidt is a Jean Monnet Professor of European Integration, Professor Emerita of International Relations in the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies and Professor Emerita of Political Science as well as the Founding Director of the Center for the Study of Europe, all at Boston University where she taught from 1998 to 2023. An authority on European politics and society, European Union, and France, she has written several books including Europe’s Crisis of Legitimacy: Governing by Rules and Ruling by Numbers in the Eurozone (2020) that was a recipient of the Best Book Award of the American Political Science Association’s Ideas, Knowledge, and Politics section. To read more about her work and accomplishments, visit her faculty profile.