Europe’s far-right treads carefully on Trump’s ‘wild West’
European ultranationalists are distancing themselves from Donald Trump’s imperialist foreign policy in Venezuela and Greenland to maintain domestic popularity and protect their nationalist agendas ahead of major elections.
What you need to know
🔹 Far-right parties are wary of Donald Trump’s recent military and territorial ambitions.
🔹 Only 12 per cent of Germans view Trump’s latest actions positively.
🔹 The AfD is backpedalling its closeness to the United States administration.
🔹 Marine Le Pen’s National Rally warns against American imperial ambitions.
G ermany’s Alternative for Germany (AfD). France’s National Rally. Neither is cheering Donald Trump’s legally disputed military operation in Venezuela and his stated determination to “get Greenland one way or the other”.
Might January 3, 2026 be the day Mr Trump and his red-hatted MAGA movement started to lose Europe’s far-right?
Not so fast. That’s the wrong question. At this point of time, some of the European mainland’s ultranationalists are finding themselves unable — and unwilling — to reconcile Mr Trump’s sweeping imperialism with their goals of claiming to speak for the people. They’re not abandoning the red hats altogether.
According to Germany’s ARD-Deutschlandtrend poll, released in the first week of January on behalf of the country’s public broadcaster, only 12 per cent of Germans view Mr Trump’s recent actions positively and 15 per cent see the US as a trustworthy partner.
Finding it inconvenient to defend Mr Trump’s foreign adventurism to a disapproving German public, the AfD is trying to backpedal its closeness to the US administration (co-leader Tino Chrupalla attended Mr Trump’s second presidential inauguration last January).
Alice Weidel, probably AfD’s best known national leader, has said: “He [Trump] has violated a fundamental election promise, namely not to interfere in other countries, and he has to explain that to his own voters”.
Mr Chrupalla struck a more emollient note but stayed with robust criticism. The US “sphere of influence” was something to think of, he said, but “wild West methods are to be rejected here, and the end does not always justify the means”.
The AfD’s wariness chimes with that of some other European anti-immigrant, nationalist, populist parties. But Marine le Pen’s National Rally (RN) goes further.
RN president Jordan Bardella recently said the US president’s approach to Greenland and Venezuela shows his “imperial ambitions”.
Not for the French far-right their German counterparts’ balancing act.
There are two reasons for this. First, there is a tradition of anti-Americanism in French politics. Second, the RN is politically much further along the power spectrum than the AfD.
The RN is now mainstream, being the chief opposition on the right to President Emmanuel Macron’s centrists with 123 seats, up from eight in 2017. As the single-biggest party in the 577-seat lower house, RN is preparing for the 2027 presidential election with a seriousness the AfD would like — but can’t — adopt.
There are two reasons for AfD’s balancing approach on imperial Trumpism.
First, the former communist east Germany wing of the party (to which Mr Chrupalla belongs) is inherently suspicious of the US.
Second, the pall hanging over AfD’s reputation and prospects. Though the party claimed a record second place in last year’s parliamentary elections and regularly tops opinion polls, it was officially classified as a rightwing extremist group by Germany’s domestic intelligence agency last year. This was on account of its predilection to abuse Muslims and migrants and seek their exclusion from the country, an issue the Trump administration can’t really do much about for all that it may try.
GOING FURTHER
German public opinion shifts against US following Venezuela intervention | REUTERS
Marine Le Pen distances National Rally from Trump imperialism | THE GUARDIAN
AfD struggles to balance Trump loyalty with German voter skepticism | DEUTSCHE WELLE
The rise of the National Rally: France's new political landscape | BBC NEWS
Jordan Bardella denounces American 'Wild West' diplomacy | LE MONDE
The Future of European Populism in the Trump Era | FOREIGN AFFAIRS
Germany’s AfD stays in the crosshairs of domestic intelligence | POLITICO
Sources:
▪ This piece was first published in Medium and re-published in Europeans TODAY on 2 February 2026 under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence. | The author writes in a personal capacity.
▪ Cover: Flickr/The White House. (Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.)
