Far right in Europe due to Trump’s rates

The ravages triggered by the Donald Trump trade war has divided the far right parties of Europe who have judged their Maga movement.

Alice Weidel, one of Alternative Germany (AFD) leaders, described the movements of the President of the United States as “too aggressive and self -destructive.” Former Goldman Sachs analyst said that the so -called reciprocal rates, which Trump paused for 90 days after a bag accident and the fears of a global recession, were “essentially bad for free trade.”

But Weidel, Tino Chrupalla, a former Pintor and Decorator of the Saxony State of East Germany, described the Trump approach as “understandable”.

“Sometimes you have to restrict free trade to protect your economy,” Chrupalla said. “President Trump wants to force other countries to negotiate. He wants to improve the commercial balance of the United States and stimulate the industry.”

Analysts said that the divergence spoke with a fundamental tension in the heart of the AfD that could also be observed in the other populist movements of Europe: how to explain to its voters a protectionist policy that would harm their country.

The Prime Minister of Italy, Giorgia Meloni, one of the few European leaders in Trump’s good books, described his rates as “a wrong choice” and has expressed hope that they will be negotiated in negotiations with the EU. Visiting the White House this month, Meloni offered to Help a meeting In Rome, between Trump and the EU officials, the President of the United States has so far disappeared.

Matteo Salvini, a member of the Meloni coalition and the leader of the Extreme-Right League party, last month defended Trump’s rates and said they could become an opportunity for Italian companies. Since then he has moderated his position after the reaction of the Meloni party in Italy.

The Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, the Trump’s antagonist and the Brussels antagonist, described the United States President’s tariff war as “tactics” and a way to extract more EU concessions.

André Ventura, who runs the Chega Party in Portugal, has also taken into account Trump, saying that his country should emulate the United States and use rates to “protect” from cheaper textile and agricultural imports in China and India.

But in France, the Rassemably National of the far right has been careful not to appear aligned with the Trump Administration’s trade war despite having a protectionist economic platform. Marine Le Pen said that France needed to practice “smart protectionism” and the commercial policy of Brussels protections to face Trump’s “brutal approach”.

The tension between different factions of the German far right may have been amplified by Trump, but is earlier than its presidency. Founded in 2013 by economists who opposed the rescue of the euro zone, the AFD gradually expanded its ranks to include anti-globalists who also tend to adopt ethno-nationalism.

“This is not exclusive to the AfD, but it is very clear on party platforms and positions: you have a more neoliberal wing and a more social protectionist wing,” said Thomas Greven, a political scientist at the Freie Universität in Berlin.

But all factions strongly believed in national sovereignty and embraced autocracy, he said. This meant that “ultimately.

The party scored a second place record in the parliamentary elections in February, after the upper figures of the Trump circle, including Elon Musk and the Vice President JD Vance, opened an open campaign.

Peter Boehringer, Vice President of the AFD and former business consultant who supports free trade, sought to interpret the interior divisions on the Trump trade war.

He noted that the Maga Movement itself was not united in the subject: while Trump’s commercial counselor, Peter Navarro, strongly defends the rates, Musk, the richest man in the world and the Trump government, who reduced the cost of costs, is in favor of the free trade and called Navarro “Dumber than a sack of bricks”.

“I tend to the vision of Elon Musk,” said Boehringer. “Free trade is good for everyone,” he said. But he emphasized that within the AfD, the subject was not “a great problem and not a very sensitive topic”.

The success of the AFD, which has increased further at the ballot box since the February vote, has been deeply neglected by the main parties, which have struggled to formulate an effective strategy to oppose it.

A prominent member of Democratic Christians (CDU), whose leader Friedrich Merz will become the next chancellor in Germany next month, said that AfD legislators should be incorporated into the parliamentary committees.

Jens Spahn of CDU argued that politicians had to recognize the millions of people who had voted for the party and take seriously. But other parties accused him of breaching the “firewall” in order to prevent AFD’s standardization, a strategy that Vance had also headed against a few days before the German election.

A AFD delegation traveled to Trump’s inauguration in Washington in January. He included Christina Baum, one of the various party figures to argue that Europe was only to blame for the fall of Trump’s move.

“The fact that the EU and Germany suffer this is a homemade problem,” Baum told FT. He said that the largest nation in Europe “should have opted for a healthy degree of self -sufficiency,” he said.

Maximilian Krah, one of the most controversial members of the party, was even stronger in his support for Trump’s rates, describing -as “the greatest change in world trade policy since the end of the war (second world).”

Weisskircher Manage of Dresden University of Technology, an expert at the far right, said that the AFD could risk the reaction of voters if Trump’s policies caused damage to Germany and remained largely critical. But he warned that the party could also simply change the government’s fault.

“The far -right parts as the Afd thrive in a strong dissatisfaction by society,” said Weisskircher. “So if the German economy is further struggling, the AFD could obtain support by taking advantage of the public government over the government.”

Amy Kazmin’s additional reports in Rome, Leila Abboud in Paris, Marton Dunai in Budapest and Barney Jopson in Madrid