Transcript
Jason Palmer (0:00)
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Rosie Blore (1:39)
Hello and welcome to the Intelligence from the Economist. I'm Rosie Blore.
Jason Palmer (1:43)
And I'm Jason Palmer. Every weekday we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world.
Rosie Blore (1:52)
When Western dating apps tried to woo India, they crashed and burned. Now, a raft of homegrown matchmakers hope they can help romances blossom online.
Jason Palmer (2:05)
And if you're a hungry predator on the savannah, where do you look for dinner? Wherever there's water. But what if you're in the jungle where it's water, water everywhere? Scientists now have a better answer about popular dining spots. First up, though.
Rosie Blore (2:42)
This European political leader is speaking of how astonished he is that those who claim to be the most vigilant against foreign interference are engaged in blatant interference with the affairs of a nation state. He says President Trump was returning to the Monroe Doctrine and acting in the economic interests of an American oil company. Sophie Pera is our Paris bureau chief. On Greenland. He said Trump's recent claims constitute a real danger to the sovereignty of a European state. You might expect such strong words from a European liberal democrat, but I was sitting in Paris listening to Jordan Bardella, head of France's populist Right national rally. He's the leader of a party that has drawn Inspiration from Trump's re election and his potent blend of country first anti immigrant nationalism. Sophie, is it really so surprising that Bardella should be criticizing Trump in this way and so explicitly? Yes, I think it is in several respects. One of them is that the party is inspired by Trump's reelection and also by the message that he managed to convey America in the United States. But the national rally in France's message effectively adds up to a France first program. So it has a distinctly Trumpian echo. But it's more than that. It's also because MAGA networks have been forging links with the populist right in Europe and not just in France. If you take for example, the new ambassador to France, Charles Kushner, he is a real estate associate of Trump's and father of Jared, his son in law. And one of the first meetings he hosted just a few months after arriving in Paris was with Marine Le Pen and her colleague Jordan Bardella, both of the National Rally. This relationship between MAGA and the populist right, it's not just France, is it? No, it's not just France. If you look at the national security strategy that America published last year, it made it very clear that the strength of what it called patriotic parties in Europe was a source of great optimism. And we saw J.D. vance, who went to Munich last year, and he didn't meet the German Chancellor while he was there, but he did meet Alice Weiss, who is the AfD co leader and criticized the firewall that keeps her party isolated in German politics. And if you just look at the guest list for Trump's inauguration last year, it was almost a who's who of the populist right. There was Italy's Giorgia Meloni. There was Britain's Nigel Farage. There were representatives of Germany's AFT and of various far right parties in France. And yes, it sounds like that relationship's now under strain in France. What about elsewhere in Europe? Well, it's been interesting if you take Germany, where the Trump administration has been most closely identified with building those links. Alice Vidal of the AfD actually declared that Trump had violated his fundamental campaign promise not to interfere in other countries with his threats over Greenland. So what you're seeing in Germany is actually the worsening of divisions within the party. There are some who think that support from magaworld is so valuable that it's self defeating to to publicly reprimand America for these sorts of threats. But others on the party's anti American wing feel that this is reviving their old concerns about Germany becoming a vassal of America. It's not just about Greenland though, is it? It's not about Greenland per se, no. Because if you take Jordan Bardella, he was critical of Donald Trump over Venezuela as well. The core of the issue for the populist right in France and elsewhere is the question of sovereignty. And if it's all about France or America, first, ultimately, therefore cannot condone an attempt to interfere in or take over or annex another sovereign state. And that is where the clash between the MAGA movement and the populist right in Europe becomes so acute. But not all of the populist leaders of Europe have spoken out. So what's going on there? No, it's interesting. I mean, Britain's Nigel Farage has done. But if you take other transatlantic leaning countries like Poland, the nationalists there have been very quiet about it. And I think that the concern in those cases, if you take Poland for example, is that they don't want to jeopardise their country's very strong transatlantic links and they think that if they are outspoken, that will undermine those ties. You've seen that also in the Netherlands, for example. And are these populist parties worried about the electoral implications of these threats? Well, I think they are. If you look at what happened in Canada, for example, at the election last year, Trump's threats to annex Canada led to the defeat for Pierre Poiev, who was the populist conservative candidate who was leading, had a huge poll lead ahead of Mark Carney. So the European populace are obviously concerned and particularly those in France who are looking ahead to presidential elections next year, they do not want that to happen. They currently have a very strong poll lead and they don't want to lose it. But more than that, they are hoping to build beyond their base on conservative right wing voters who are more Trump skeptic. So I would say that even though MAGA is clearly seeking to help these parties on the populist right, the more brazen that Trump's threats become, the greater a political liability he could be for them. Sophie, thank you very much for talking to me. It's always a pleasure, Rosie.