Donald versus Donald. It is an unusual duel which will deserve to be observed closely, in the great geopolitical upheaval which is expected in 2025. Donald Trump and Donald Tusk have in common, in addition to their first name, to find themselves at the same time at the head of their country after having both exercised power, experienced failure and matured their return after years of absence. On January 20, Trump will be inaugurated president of the United States, where he was elected on November 5. Tusk, Prime Minister of Poland for a year, has held the rotating presidency of the European Union since January 1 for six months.
The timing of their face-to-face meeting is not insignificant at a time when Ukraine, which will enter its fourth year of war on February 24, is experiencing a critical phase. Donald the American has defined the European Union as a commercial “enemy” that he wants to weaken through an increase in customs tariffs and suggested a weakening, if not a withdrawal, of United States support for NATO. He promised both a halt to aid to Ukraine (which his emissary Keith Kellogg contradicted) and a settlement of the Ukrainian conflict “in twenty-four hours”, without specifying how, but which could favor Putin.
Fervent European
Conversely, Donald the Pole is a fervent European, former president of the Council of the EU and at the head of one of the European NATO countries most attached to the strengthening of the Atlantic Alliance, the most exposed to Russia and the best prepared to fight it. Poland, which holds the record in Europe for the share of GDP devoted to its defense, has become the Union’s first conventional army. At a time when France and Germany both found themselves in a situation of great political weakness, Tusk’s Poland gained importance and asserted its leadership.
More than an ocean separates the two Donalds, and not just the Atlantic. The liberal Polish Prime Minister worked on an experiment, unprecedented in Europe, of deconstruction of a national-populist system built by the Law and Justice party (PiS) which, in eight years and like Viktor Orbán’s Hungary, , worked to confiscate the counter-powers – judicial, legislative, media – for the sake of its interests. The elected American president, icon of nationalist-populists, has put in place some bases for an “illiberal democracy” inspired by that of Orbán, for whom he does not hide his admiration. From the Supreme Court, he was granted immunity for all official acts taken during his mandate. He is thus the first American president (re)elected having been indicted, among dozens of reasons, for nothing less than a “conspiracy against the American state”, after a parliamentary investigation of ten -eight months proved his attempt to stay in power despite his defeat, as well as his role in the assault on the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Between Donald and Donald, a surprise is possible
Will the Tusk-Trump confrontation be explosive, or on the contrary complementary? On both sides of the Atlantic, the Donalds could surprise on the question, existential for the European Union and its member states, of preventing a victory for Putin in Ukraine which would deal an almost fatal blow to international law, would mark the victory of impunity and the green light given to imperialist dictatorships around the world. The Pole, because his determination, even associated with that of the countries closest to Russia, but also of France, the United Kingdom or Italy, blocks the reluctance of pro-Russian European countries and the incapacity of the EU to implement a real European pillar of NATO. The American, because he is caught in the conflict of his own vanities: that of keeping his hastily launched promise to “end the war in Ukraine in twenty-four hours” and that of appearing as a leader powerful who does not kneel before Vladimir Putin. Donald Trump, and his emissary in Russia and Ukraine General Kellogg is there to remind him, cannot begin his second term with a rout in Ukraine which would unfortunately resemble the one over which Joe Biden presided in Afghanistan. The two Donalds could then go a long way together.
Marion van Renterghem is a senior reporter, winner of the Albert-Londres prize and author of Nord Stream Trap (Arenas)
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