EU Warns US Security Strategy Boosts Far-Right Parties And Threatens Transatlantic Unity (Worthy News Analysis)

by Stefan J. Bos, Worthy News Europe Bureau Chief

BRUSSELS/BUDAPEST (Worthy News) – European Union leaders have expressed deep concern about a new U.S. national security strategy that they view as “ideologically anti-European,” supportive of “far-right” and populist movements across the continent, and a threat to transatlantic unity.

The document, issued by the White House as President Donald J. Trump’s official National Security Strategy, warns that Europe is facing what it calls “civilizational erasure,” accusing EU institutions and “other transnational bodies” of “undermining sovereignty” and contributing to a “loss of national identities and self-confidence.”

One of the most contentious passages states that the United States should “cultivate resistance to Europe’s current trajectory within European nations,” language EU officials say reads like a call to empower European far-right parties.

The strategy also declares that “the days of the United States propping up the entire world order like Atlas are over,” signaling a significant shift in U.S. security commitments at a sensitive geopolitical moment.

António Costa, President of the European Council, called the U.S. proposals “unacceptable,” warning that Europe would resist any attempt by Washington to influence its political direction. “Europe will not tolerate interference in its democratic processes,” he said.

US STRATEGY INTERFERES WITH EUROPEAN DEMOCRACY?

Concerns have intensified as U.S. President Donald J. Trump maintains unusually close ties with several nationalist European leaders, including Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, whom Trump frequently praised during his election campaign as a model for Europe.

Trump applauded Orbán’s crackdown on “illegal migrants,” even while acknowledging Western unease over what critics view as Orbán’s increasingly autocratic governing style.

His administration has also voiced support for Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, leader of the right-wing Brothers of Italy (FdI) party.

Orbán’s Fidesz party is known for its national-conservative, right-wing populist, and Eurosceptic positions, and observers — including Orbán himself — often place him and Meloni within the same “right-wing, nationalist, conservative” wave reshaping Europe.

Their shared priorities include skepticism toward EU liberal policies on immigration, multiculturalism, and LGBTQ rights while promoting national identity, “traditional Christian family values,” and greater sovereignty within the EU.

EU QUESTIONS TRUMP’S TIES WITH NATIONALIST LEADERS

Yet the positions of these leaders diverge sharply on one crucial issue: the war in Ukraine.

Meloni has been strongly supportive of Kyiv, backing military and economic assistance to Ukraine. Orbán, by contrast, has repeatedly opposed further Western military and financial aid to Kyiv and maintains closer ties with Russia than most EU leaders.

Besides backing current leaders in Hungary and Italy, Trump has also expressed enthusiasm for Germany’s Alternative for Germany (AfD), a party widely criticized for its hardline rhetoric on migration and its challenges to post-war democratic norms.

European officials say the language of the U.S. strategy document — particularly phrases like “cultivate resistance” and warnings of “civilizational erasure” — appears to echo themes prominent in AfD speeches and campaign materials.

US LANGUAGE SEEN AS ‘ECHOING FAR-RIGHT’

The document stresses that Europe must take “primary responsibility for its own defense,” a departure from decades of U.S. foreign policy. Analysts say this rhetoric could undermine NATO cohesion at a time when the continent faces its largest conflict since World War II.

EU diplomats say the strategy could embolden forces seeking to weaken the European Union from within, risking deeper political fragmentation as the war in Ukraine continues.

EU officials say the strategy “questions the very foundations of transatlantic unity.”

They argue that if the United States “encourages internal resistance” to the EU, it fundamentally changes the nature of the U.S.-European alliance.

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