Merlin Weekly Macro: Is Trump’s ire with Europe’s democracy justified?

2026: off with a bang

Deploying imperious language and with imperial intent, President Trump has wasted no time implementing his new National Security Strategy. It has come thick and fast. Assaulted with a big club: Nigeria; Venezuela; fluid-flagged, sanction-busting shadow tankers in the Caribbean and North Atlantic. On formal notice for similar treatment and robust intervention: Mexico; Iran; Colombia (where President Pietro has “gotta watch his ass”, according to Trump in distinctly menacing and undiplomatic language). For date-stamped appropriation, by force if necessary: Greenland (and keeping a very low profile out of his immediate line of sight in case Trump suddenly remembers about them too, Canada the 51st State of the US, and Panama). And all of this since Christmas Day.

Such brute power! Friend and foe alike look on with a mixture of awe at the scope, envy of the resources and anxiety of the consequences.

Trump and the democratic deficit

Trump rails against Europe about many things in his Strategy document. Expressed forcibly are his views on the democratic deficit. Here in the context of disagreements about a resolution to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, he makes his opinions perfectly plain: “The Trump Administration finds itself at odds with European officials who hold unrealistic expectations for the war perched in unstable minority governments, many of which trample on basic principles of democracy to suppress opposition. A large European majority wants peace, yet that desire is not translated into policy, in large measure because of those governments’ subversion of democratic processes. This is strategically important to the United States precisely because European states cannot reform themselves if they are trapped in political crisis”.

The criticism of the democratic deficit in Europe is a familiar stomping ground in these columns, as regular readers will be well aware. However, we and Trump arrive at similar conclusions from very different perspectives.

In the bipartisan red-or-blue two-party environment of US politics, coalition governments are almost unheard of. This is in sharp contrast with the rainbow spectrum of parties prevalent across Europe and many countries habitually having coalition governments. His criticism of “unstable minority governments” in Europe is pertinent but far from universal: Georgia Meloni’s right-wing coalition in Italy, for example, has proven an unexpected model of stability and effective government.

However, the implication is that similar conditions cannot arise in the US. Given the very different electoral structures either side of the Atlantic (and indeed within Europe) this is largely true. However, given the different structural compositions of the House of Representatives and the Senate, the constitutional relationship between Congress (parliament) and the White House (the executive) with the additional check provided by the mid-term elections, US history is littered with “lame duck” presidents who won the White House but who failed either to achieve or retain majorities in the House and the Senate for the duration of the president’s term. As for the inference that “unstable” European governments are uniquely dysfunctional, Trump’s reign of administrative chaos in his first term with the constantly revolving door of senior cabinet officers was ample evidence that America is not immune from such an experience.

To say which type of democratic process is better or worse is largely a function of whether you happen to be in power or not; certainly none is perfect. But what is true of all of them is that unless demonstrably and irretrievably broken, changing electoral systems or messing about with them raises suspicions of seeking unfair electoral advantage. 

Our well-rehearsed criticism of the democratic deficit in Europe is the accelerating accumulation of transnational powers by the EU’s executive arm (the Commission) and the extent to which the electorate is increasingly irrelevant as the relative importance of the Council of Ministers and especially the European Parliament diminishes. Given Trump’s free and extensive use of executive orders and the extent to which he bypasses Congress it can hardly be the concentration and centralisation of power in Europe that he is objecting to.  

At the national level, no doubt he has in mind France as his principal example with its enduring political paralysis. But his perspective is much more likely to be coloured by partisan sympathy with the plight of likeminded political parties in Europe. He is well aware of the post-election manoeuvrings evident in countries such as Germany, Holland and Austria to keep electorally successful right-wing parties away from the levers of power. Trump is the living definition of a “populist” politician; he is an unapologetic nationalist. The florid language of former EU establishment luminaries such as Jean-Claude Juncker (ex-President of the EU Commission: “mindless populism and small-minded nationalism…”), Donald Tusk (ex-President of the EU Council: “a special place in Hell for  Brexiteers…”) and Guy Verhofstadt (former Belgian Prime Minister and ex-EU MP: “populist-nationalist nightmare…”) will have only reinforced and inflamed Trump’s own populist prejudices against what he terms the “swamp”, whether it be the elite in Washington, Brussels or any European capital.

Many in Europe will counter that Trump’s own political modus operandi with its heavy reliance on Executive Orders and Presidential Decrees bypassing Congress, his political stacking of institutions such as the Federal Reserve and the Supreme Court to his own political advantage, plus his wilful ignorance and flouting of international conventions and laws, together are an affront to democracy and a gratuitous abuse of power.

The UK: a model of democratic principle?

The United Kingdom is in his sights too. He and his Vice President have already been highly vocal about what they see as the UK’s curtailment of free speech through legislation which was never originally intended to have such an effect.

More is to come for them to disapprove of: in May we have the next set of local elections for county and metropolitan councils and regional and city mayoralties including London (where the mutual personal animosity between Trump and the London Mayor Sadiq Khan is now a state of dynamic, undisguised open warfare). 136 authorities are due to be contested. Under a programme of local government reform initiated by former deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner in 2024, as happened also last year, many are subject to restructuring and streamlining, including boundaries being re-drawn and boroughs and councils being amalgamated into new “unitary” authorities.

Labour insists that a period of “bedding in” is required before substantive elections can be held. Local Government minister Steve Reed has given 63 councils the option of either going ahead as planned, or delaying the polls until 2027 (some mayoral elections will be postponed until 2028). According to press reports, five authorities, all Labour, have already opted to delay; a further 17 Labour-controlled councils are considering; only four have so far said they will go ahead whatever the circumstances. Given the reforms are far from complete and with Labour’s polling fortunes under extreme stress, there is the growing suspicion that this turns into an endless programme of restructuring (with allowable delays in elections built in) driven much more by political expediency than administrative efficiency. Interviewed on Radio 4 before Christmas, one hapless Labour leader of a council in the North West gave the game away: his basic premise was that councils needed to be able to get on with their business of providing essential local services, local elections on top of the reorganisations are a “distraction” and, in the case of his own council, the cost of providing the electoral machinery was money that “could be spent better elsewhere”. It was difficult to avoid the conclusion that it is all an unnecessary inconvenience to which the solution is to disenfranchise the electorate.

Delays relating to restructuring are not unprecedented. But where Starmer is open to accusations of interfering in the democratic process (“subverting” it in Trump’s language) is that the great majority of those councils pleading the need to suspend are ones where Nigel Farage’s Reform Party is likely to make significant gains at Labour’s expense. 

Electoral outcomes directly influence policy; who wins and who loses is not the point but the principle of being allowed to vote is paramount. Political arguments should be won by robust debate and making a convincing case; suppressing a vote as a means of avoiding engagement is both counterproductive and the start of a slippery slope.

The investment perspective

Disenfranchisement, however legitimately it is dressed up and justified, builds resentment against the political class and a distrust in politics. Politics drive policy. The reaction against politics polarises opinions and makes predicting policy outcomes more difficult. Markets dislike uncertainty but where it is present the result can often be increased volatility in asset prices and altered perceptions of risk premia.  

The other practical effect is the US response. Explicit in his Strategy document, Trump sees democratic delinquents among counterparties as giving offence to US interests. He is prepared to act. Last year, JD Vance was explicit that unless free speech and the democratic deficit were addressed, Europe could not expect America to come to its defence. Trade, foreign inward investment, energy and many other policy areas of national security and economic interest could easily be weaponised by Trump’s administration as it seeks to bend others to its way of thinking. 

It should not be a case of simply trying to keep the right side of Trump. It is that the principle of democratic representation is too precious casually to be abused. If we let it happen, either willingly or through indolence and indifference, we bear the consequences.  

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