A Europe in crisis needs a Trump reset to attack its problems like it or not
Consider these European and American binaries.On Dec.20, 2024, a terrorist, Taleb Al-Abdul Mohsen, rammed his SUV into a Christmas crowd in Magdeburg, Germany.
He killed six pedestrians and injured 299 others.Eleven days later, on New Year’s Eve in New Orleans, La., Shamsud-Din Bahar Jabbar smashed his pickup into a festive crowd.He murdered 15 and hurt over 35.Germany’s fertility rate is scarcely above 1.4 — about average for a shrinking European Union.
About 20% of the country is now foreign-born, a record high.American fertility has precipitously dived to 1.6.The foreign-born now represent 15% of the American resident population, the highest in both actual numbers (50 million) and percentages in history.The German military is a shell of its former self, with fewer than 200,000 soldiers and a shortage of almost all types of weapons.The US military, after being humiliated in Afghanistan, is currently down some 40,000-plus recruits.
It faces shortages of anti-tank weapons, artillery shells, ships and logistical support.Germany may finally manage to spend 2% of its GDP on defense; the United States is heading downward below 3% — the lowest in over 80 years since the Great Depression.Last year, the German economy shrank; this year, it will scarcely grow, in part because of shortages of affordable fossil fuels.Germans pay four times what Americans on average do for electricity.Yet the Trump administration has promised an oil and natural gas renaissance, hoping to expand both production and exports with envisioned new pipelines and liquefied natural gas terminals.In sum, the United States is beginning to mimic the pathologies of Europe — and yet in the next four years, renewal could help slow the decline of both.Both face shrinking and aging populations.
Both either cannot or will not control their borders, despite popular protests.Both suffer from woke political correctness and are pushing back.The proverbial people of both nations want smaller governmen...