He has not even taken possession of the White House yet, and he has already invited Canada to join the United States, suggested a military intervention in Mexico to combat drug trafficking, told Denmark he wants to buy Greenland, demanded absolute control of the Panama Canal, and threatened to impose hefty tariffs on the European Union if its 27 members do not purchase more oil and liquefied natural gas in the US market. In parallel, his lieutenant, Elon Musk, is meddling in German politics to provide support for the far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD), an organization with neo-Nazi echoes that hasn’t even found shelter in the Trumpian platform Patriots for Europe. This is what's coming.
Trump does not ramble, he applies the brutalist method to the vital impulses of the renewed oligarchy of the United States. He despises liberals, laborists, social democrats, and old-school Christian democrats: old European politics. He has a strong desire to keep Mexico in check. He harbors chronic distrust towards the European Union. He wants to expand the market for hydrocarbons obtained through fracking. There is a growing ideological and psychological distance from the democratic values of 1945. There is a fierce struggle with China over technological developments and the supply of strategic minerals, hence the interest in Greenland. There is an absolute priority given to controlling the main trade routes: the Panama Canal, the Suez Canal, the Red Sea, and the Strait of Malacca.
A bloc formed by Germany, France, Poland, and Italy could leave Spain behind in the EU
Trump sculpts concrete blocks with compressed air hoses, mocking the old chisel of the Democrats, but he doesn't say anything that contradicts the deeper interests of the economic elites who have backed him, or who have switched horses when they saw him winning. Trump is a language, a way of speaking, now amplified by network X, with franchises spread around the world. That's what's coming. That's what's returning. That's what could disrupt Spanish foreign policy, an area that Pedro Sánchez seemed to have well under control since the NATO summit in Madrid in June 2022.
In less than fifteen days, Trump has shone a powerful flashlight on the face of the Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, a likable character in a downturn; on the newly inaugurated President of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum, with a clear leftist affiliation; on the bewildered President of Panama, José Raúl Mulino, representing local business interests in the canal, and on the Danish Prime Minister, Mette Frederiksen, the most resilient of the Scandinavian social democratic leaders. The flashlight has not yet focused on Sánchez, the only European prime minister leading a coalition government composed exclusively of left-wing forces.
Musk's actions in Germany belong to another historical category. Musk is going to have trouble with Trump's people. he is already facing them. Steve Bannon, a pioneer of the MAGA movement, has already raised his voice, accusing him of being an unprincipled opportunist. Musk's campaign in favor of the extreme right in Germany is a return to the thirties when some members of the American elite sympathized with the Nazis. The South African Musk has just broken one of the commandments of 1945: you shall protect democracy in Germany above all else. Brutalism returns, and the foundations of the Marshall Plan are buried. The “everyone against everyone” scenario resurfaces with all its harshness. The newspaper El Mundo, owned by an Italian company and published in Madrid, has just proclaimed Musk the Julius Caesar of our time. That's what's coming, catching Alberto Núñez Feijóo and Carles Puigdemont holding hands in the back row of the Capitol cinema, and Sánchez checking the fortifications of the Moncloa. The world is going to change fundamentally, and Spanish politics regains a strong domestic flavor, as in other critical moments in history.
Morocco will request the total annexation of Western Sahara, with probable support from Washington
The United States currently has no serious disputes with Spain. Take note of this name: USS Oscar Austin. It is the name of the fifth destroyer of the United States Navy at the Rota Naval Base in Cadiz, which arrived last October under the agreement between the two countries for the expansion of said base, from which the NATO missile defense shield operates in the Mediterranean. Washington requested the expansion, and the Spanish government granted it in 2022 without parliamentary debate, a debate that no one insisted on. In parallel, the Spanish government adjusted its position on Western Sahara to align with the doctrinal flexibility of the Biden Administration: an autonomous Moroccan region under UN supervision.
The last time Trump commented on this issue, in December 2020, at the end of his first term, he said: full Moroccan sovereignty outside the UN. Rabat is going to pull on that rope. It will surely ask the new US government to open a consulate in Sahrawi territory, the consulate that Biden has not wanted to open during his term. There could soon be rough seas in the Strait of Gibraltar. Morocco may ask Spain for more with possible US backing. A situation that seemed under control could turn turbulent. French President Emmanuel Macron reconciled with King Mohamed VI shortly before the US presidential elections. Relations with Algeria remain semi-frozen. And attention will need to be paid to Libya, for reasons we will see later. In this new framework, Spain cannot expect any favors from Israel, quite the opposite.
The clash with the new Trump administration could also come from Latin America. First stop: Venezuela. Trump will take office in January and that same month the legitimist battle in Venezuela will resume. Felipe González has already offered to accompany opposition candidate Edmundo González Urrutia to Caracas to claim the presidency. Venezuela, capital Madrid.
Marco Rubio will make moves in Latin America: the drama of Venezuela, Brazil on guard
After the failure of the last Ibero-American Summit in Cuenca (Ecuador), which concluded last November without an official declaration and without a significant presence of heads of government, Spain must reconsider its policy in the region. This reconfiguration can only be done today with the support of Brazil. Trump has already made a move by announcing the appointment of Republican Senator Marco Rubio, of Cuban descent, as the new Secretary of State. Rubio, who has maintained a close friendship with José María Aznar in the past, will pay close attention to Latin America.
But the fundamental pillar of Spanish foreign policy remains the European Union, in which Sánchez has navigated well so far, to the greater displeasure of the opposition leader, who is not enthusiastic about foreign policy. Feijóo is more inclined towards Soria than Syria and is deeply displeased by the good treatment that Ursula von der Leyen has given to the Spanish socialist president. Let's remember that at the end of last November, the Spanish Popular Party voted against the composition of the new European Commission to underline its opposition to Vice President Teresa Ribera.
The February elections in Germany will be crucial for the direction of the EU in the new international context. It is likely that the new chancellor will be the conservative Friedrich Merz, leader of the CDU, who all observers place to the right of Angela Merkel. A coalition government between the CDU-CSU and the Social Democrats, in a subordinate position, is not out of the question in Germany.
The elections in Germany will be fundamental for the direction of the EU in the new international coordinates
The risk for Sánchez in 2025 is to be left behind in a reactivation of the so-called Weimar Triangle (France, Germany, and Poland), which will have to take into account Italy, given that Giorgia Meloni will try to mediate with Trump and Musk. Pompeii and Julius Caesar.
Italy will be in the spotlight for another reason. Russia is showing signs of wanting to transfer the forces currently concentrated at the Syrian naval base in Tartus, in the Mediterranean, to Benghazi, the eastern capital of Libya. The Benghazi region, the ancient Cyrenaica from Roman times, is under the control of General Haftar with Moscow's support. Libya could become a springboard for Russia's military operations in Africa. Benghazi is located 980 kilometers from the island of Sicily and 2,400 kilometers from the naval base in Rota.
Sánchez's foreign policy could unravel in 2025, and the Spanish right will have to decide on its means of engagement with the new American power. Santiago Abascal holds Trump shares as the president of the Patriots for Europe platform. Aznar was a friend of Marco Rubio. And Núñez Feijóo has entrusted his foreign navigation notebook to Esteban González Pons and Manfred Weber, president of the European People's Party, with sources familiar with German politics noting that he does not maintain an excellent relationship with the likely chancellor Friedrich Merz.
